Editing Cold fusion (section)

==Patents==
Although details have not surfaced, it appears that the University of Utah forced the 23 March 1989 Fleischmann and Pons announcement to establish priority over the discovery and its patents before the joint publication with Jones.<ref name="utah patent"/> The [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (MIT) announced on 12 April 1989 that it had applied for its own patents based on theoretical work of one of its researchers, [[Peter L. Hagelstein]], who had been sending papers to journals from 5 to 12 April.<ref name=Broad1989/> An MIT graduate student applied for a patent but was reportedly rejected by the USPTO in part by the citation of the "negative" MIT Plasma Fusion Center's cold fusion experiment of 1989. On 2 December 1993 the University of Utah licensed all its cold fusion patents to ENECO, a new company created to profit from cold fusion discoveries,{{sfn|ps=|Lewenstein|1994|p=43}} and in March 1998 it said that it would no longer defend its patents.<ref name="wired steam">{{cite magazine|mode= cs2 |title= Cold Fusion Patents Run Out of Steam |author=<!--not stated-->|date= 24 March 1998 |magazine= [[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |url=https://www.wired.com/1998/03/cold-fusion-patents-run-out-of-steam/|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140104170533/http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1998/03/11179 |archive-date= 4 January 2014 |url-status= live}}</ref>

The [[U.S. Patent and Trademark Office]] (USPTO) now rejects patents claiming cold fusion.<ref name="Weinberger2004"/> Esther Kepplinger, the deputy commissioner of patents in 2004, said that this was done using the same argument as with [[perpetual motion machine]]s: that they do not work.<ref name="Weinberger2004"/> Patent applications are required to show that the invention is "useful", and this [[Utility (patentability requirement)|utility]] is dependent on the invention's ability to function.<ref name="incredible"/> In general USPTO rejections on the sole grounds of the invention's being "inoperative" are rare, since such rejections need to demonstrate "proof of total incapacity",<ref name="incredible"/> and cases where those rejections are upheld in a Federal Court are even rarer: nevertheless, in 2000, a rejection of a cold fusion patent was appealed in a Federal Court and it was upheld, in part on the grounds that the inventor was unable to establish the utility of the invention.<ref name="incredible"/><ref group="notes" name="patent case"/>

A U.S. patent might still be granted when given a different name to disassociate it from cold fusion,{{sfn|ps=|Simon|2002|pp=193, 233}} though this strategy has had little success in the US: the same claims that need to be patented can identify it with cold fusion, and most of these patents cannot avoid mentioning Fleischmann and Pons' research due to legal constraints, thus alerting the patent reviewer that it is a cold-fusion-related patent.{{sfn|ps=|Simon|2002|pp=193, 233}} David Voss said in 1999 that some patents that closely resemble cold fusion processes, and that use materials used in cold fusion, have been granted by the USPTO.<ref name="voss-science"/> The inventor of three such patents had his applications initially rejected when they were reviewed by experts in nuclear science; but then he rewrote the patents to focus more on the electrochemical parts so they would be reviewed instead by experts in electrochemistry, who approved them.<ref name="voss-science"/><ref>{{cite journal|mode=cs2 |title=A Case Study of Inoperable Inventions: Why Is the USPTO Patenting Pseudoscience? |author=Daniel C. Rislove |journal=Wisconsin Law Review |year=2006 |volume=2006 |issue=4 |pages=1302–1304, footnote 269 in page 1307 |url=http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/lawreview/issues/2006-4/rislove.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925131935/http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/lawreview/issues/2006-4/rislove.pdf |archive-date=25 September 2015 }}</ref> When asked about the resemblance to cold fusion, the patent holder said that it used nuclear processes involving "new nuclear physics" unrelated to cold fusion.<ref name="voss-science"/> Melvin Miles was granted in 2004 a patent for a cold fusion device, and in 2007 he described his efforts to remove all instances of "cold fusion" from the patent description to avoid having it rejected outright.<ref name=Sanderson2007/>

At least one patent related to cold fusion has been granted by the [[European Patent Office]].<ref name=Fox1994a/>

A patent only legally prevents others from using or benefiting from one's invention. However, the general public perceives a patent as a stamp of approval, and a holder of three cold fusion patents said the patents were very valuable and had helped in getting investments.<ref name="voss-science"/>