Action to Declassify Secret Energy Patents

by Gary Vesperman

Las Vegas-area Congresswoman Shelley Berkley announced in August 2001, at a meeting in Las Vegas, a bill for the Small Business Administration to annually provide 750 million dollars in energy loan guarantees (see Berkley Reveals Green Energy Solutions). In response to Berkley's subsequent request for responses from the audience, I explained that the U.S. Patent Office has a nine-member committee which screens patents for national security implications, and that a hidden purpose of this committee is to lock up energy-related patents which could threaten the fossil-fuel monopolies and the power grid (nuclear, coal, etc.). When an inventor has his or her energy patent classified, I explained, the inventor faces 20 years in prison for working on or publicizing the invention. I told Berkley and the audience that a Space Energy Journal article by Don Kelly claimed some years ago that there are now 3000 energy patents which have been classified, and that I considered it highly likely that there were some potentially very productive new sources of energy locked up in those 3000 patents. 

"As a former Patent Examiner, I can tell you that the number of "secretized" patents in the vault at the Patent Office (Park 5 Bldg.) is closer to 4000 or more. They [applicants] never receive a patent number, and the inventor is rarely, if ever, compensated by the government for use of the invention." - Thomas Valone, of the Integrity Research Institute 

I asked Berkley to add a section to her bill to establish some kind of mechanism for going back and reviewing all these classified energy patents for possible release and government support for their development. Berkley seemed favorably responsive. I offered to help her write the section, and was referred to a staff member. Below are a few stories to give readers who are unfamiliar with energy invention suppression a feeling for the ruthlessness and unfairness of this dirty, greedy business

Energy Patent Suppression: Seven Cautionary Tales

Story No. 1 

Neil Schmidt stopped in my office on May 12, 1995, to tell me this story about his invention of a hydraulic wind turbine. At this time, he had been living in Las Vegas for seven years. But nine years before, he was living in the Seattle area, and had visited a federal Small Business Administration office there to apply for financial aid. The following day, he received a telephone call. He was told his device would not work, and not to bother with it. He had provided the SBA office with hardly more than a sketch, so a hot argument erupted which lasted half an hour. The caller ended up hinting death to Neil if he didn't stop working on his invention. A couple of days later, Neil went back to the office and walked around unsuccessfully trying to identify the voice he had heard on the telephone. Neil also has heard that another energy inventor living near his Washington residence had been shot in the head and blinded.

Story No. 2

When one of my inventor friends was a young man, he invented a 90-mpg carburetor. He was paid a visit by four men, including one from Standard Oil and two wearing U.S. Marshal's uniforms. They told him that if he ever made another carburetor, they would kill him, his wife, and two young children. He was quickly persuaded that his life wasn't worth a "damn carburetor." He happened to think to memorize the badge numbers of the two "US Marshals," and so had an attorney in Washington, DC, check with the US Marshal's office. They had no record of the two badge numbers.

Story No. 3

In the 1930s, Henry T. Moray was refused a patent on his cold semiconductor cathode, allegedly because the patent examiner couldn't understand how it could emit electrons. Twenty years later, the development of the transistor proved that his device could actually have worked. Then in 1940, Moray demonstrated before members of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) his free energy generator, which gave a continuous output of 250,000 volts with no apparent input. The next day he was found shot in his lab, and all of his notes and device were stolen. Currently, the Cosray Research Institute of Salt Lake City has been collecting Moray's papers from old acquaintances and attempting to duplicate the device.

Story No. 4

In May 1974, John Andrews, a Portuguese chemist, demonstrated a water-to-gas additive before Navy officials. The additive allowed ordinary water to be added to gasoline without decreasing the combustibility of the gas. It would have driven the cost of gasoline down to two cents per gallon. When U.S. Navy officials finally went to his lab to negotiate for the formula, they found Andrews missing and his lab ransacked.

Story No. 5

In July 1974, the Los Angeles District Attorney, acting under orders from the "top," raided the assembly plant of Ed Gray and confiscated his prototype generator, as well as his plans and records. They brought numerous false charges against him, and defied all attempts by Gray's lawyers to get the confiscated materials returned. Gray's opponents have driven him into bankruptcy (Generator, Free Energy, Patent No. 38,905,480).

Story No. 6

On September 3, 1978, a U.S. Government agency restricted development of a CB radio and telephone privacy device. The device had been invented by four men — Carl Kicolai, William Raike, Carl Quale, and David Miller, of Seattle, Washington. It prevents eavesdropping on CB radio and telephone transmissions for nonmilitary, non-government use. The patent was applied for and refused. The National Security Agency was quick to issue a secrecy order against them,[2] preventing them from even talking about the invention without risking a jail term. The order was received six months after a patent was filed for the device. The Patent Office wrote: "Your application . . . has been found to contain subject matter, the unauthorized disclosure of which might be detrimental to national security."

Story No. 7

Most people believe that it is impossible to build a motor run solely by magnets. Howard Johnson spent six years fighting the Patent Office to accept the reality of his magnet motor. They finally granted him U.S. Patent 4,151,431. There are dozens of other magnet motor patents. Many achievements in developing free energy from magnetism have occurred in obscure basement workshops all over the country. In most cases, these achievements remain the secret of the inventor, who fears reprisal. Engineers at Hitachi Magnetics Corporation have publicly admitted that a motor run by magnets is feasible and logical. But the politics of the matter make it impossible for them to pursue developing a magnet motor, or any device that would compete with the energy cartels.