BlackLight Power - Company - Patents

Patents

BLP holds several patents based on graphic modelling software, and a "molecular hydrogen laser". They have struggled with others. A 2000 patent based on its hydrino-related technology was later withdrawn by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) due to contradictions with known physics laws and other concerns about the viability of the described processes. A column by Robert L. Park and an outside query by an unknown person prompted Group Director Kepplinger to review this new patent herself. Kepplinger said that her "main concern was the proposition that the applicant was claiming the electron going to a lower orbital in a fashion that I knew was contrary to the known laws of physics and chemistry", and that the patent appeared to involve cold fusion and perpetual motion. She contacted another Director, Robert Spar, who also expressed doubts on the patentability of the patent application. This caused the USPTO to withdraw from issue the patent application before it was granted and re-open it for review, and to withdraw four related applications, including one for a hydrino power plant. One of the four applications was so near to issuance that it appeared in the USPTO's Gazette as US 6,030,601 . BlackLight filed suit in the US District Court of Columbia, saying that withdrawal of the application after having paid the fee was contrary to law. In 2002 the District Court concluded that the USPTO was acting inside the limits of its authority in withdrawing a patent over whose validity it had doubts, and later that year the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ratified this decision. Applications were rejected by the UK patent office for similar reasons. The European Patent Office (EPO) rejected a similar BLP patent application due to lack of clarity on how the process worked. Reexamination of this European patent is pending.