The United States Patent Office might be changing its mind about cold fusion. The office has apparently granted long time low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) researcher George H. Miley a patent on something called Dislocation Site Formation Techniques. These involve the loading and unloading hydrogen and core formation.

It states: “The described techniques can be applied to superconductive structure formation, x-ray and charged particle generation, nuclear reaction processes and/or inertial confinement fusion target.” That sounds like fusion and low energy nuclear reaction to me. It seems the Patent Office might be abandoning its long standing antipathy to cold fusion.

The patent number is 8227020 and it apparently took a long time to get it. Miley reportedly filed it on March 31, 2008 but it wasn’t issued until July 24, 2012. Miley is listed as the inventor and NPL Associates Inc. of Champaign, Illinois, which I imagine is his company is the assignee. That means it will receive any royalties or other profits from the patent.

Miley a professor emeritus (retired professor) at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana has been working on an LENR power cell for spacecraft for some time. He hopes to sell the device to NASA someday for use in space craft. It could have commercial uses such as powering satellites or asteroid mining as well.

Miley apparently organized a company called LENUCO to commercialize his process. I imagine LENUCO is the NPL Associates Inc. mentioned in the patent. Miley’s process uses fuel cells composed of palladium and nickel immersed in a heavy water solution. This creates clusters of hydrogen that eventually lead to fusion.

A few months back Miley told Ruby Carat of Cold Fusion Now that he wants to create a gas charged version of his power cell. Andrea Rossi is apparently working on similar for his hot ecat. Miley has been working with grad students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on LENR for some time.

If these report is correct it means that the US Patent Office’s long standing policy of rejecting cold fusion or LENR patents might be over. It also means that Miley has a leg up on competitors such as Andrea Rossi, Francessco Celani, and Robert Godes who haven’t received US patents yet. How his patent might affect their work is hard to say. Hopefully this is just the first of many cold fusion patents that the office will approve in the years ahead.

Interestingly enough the e-cat site is apparently no more. The site will be folded into Cold Fusion Now because its writer has joined forces with that site. E-cat site will remain online as sort of a historical archive for those interested in its work.