Internet Archive: USPTO file wrapper of continuation US 10/081,847 (2026-10-05)

Found via Google query "Power generation within a motionless electromagnetic generator" (results also included PlainSite docket "Status: Abandoned -- Failure to Respond to an Office Action", patentscope.wipo.int and patentbear listing publication US 2004/0057255 A1). Item: https://archive.org/details/gov.uspto.patents.application.10081847 (31 documents, uploaded 2014 from USPTO bulk data; examiner Shawn Riley, art unit 2838, class 363, first inventor Stephen L. Patrick, filing date 2002-02-26). Read (OCR text streams): - Non-final rejection 2004-01-23: https://archive.org/stream/gov.uspto.patents.application.10081847/10081847-image_file_wrapper/10081847-2004-01-23-00002-CTNF_djvu.txt - Applicants' remarks 2004-05-24: .../10081847-2004-05-24-00003-REM_djvu.txt (first 50,000 of 85,447 characters read) - Final rejection 2004-07-26: .../10081847-2004-07-26-00003-CTFR_djvu.txt Not read: abandonment notice 2005-05-16 (ABN), the Bearden declaration (2004-05-24 "A..." item), petitions 2002, 892 reference list.

What happened (USPTO record) [web, URLs above]

1. 2002-02-26: continuation of the MEG patent filed, same specification (page 2 missing, per the examiner), 14 claims.
2. 2004-01-23, non-final rejection by primary examiner Shawn Riley: all 14 claims rejected under 35 USC 101 (lack of utility: "the device will not operate as an electrical energy generating system"), 112 first and second paragraphs, and obviousness-type double patenting over claims 1-29 of US 6,362,718. Drawings objected to: "when the input power source (e.g., 38) is taken away, the remaining circuit becomes inoperable" and "all figures referring to a coefficient of performance ... are inoperable as violating at least the first and second laws of thermodynamics". He cites Newman v. Quigg (1988) and writes that "the applicant is required to demonstrate how the magnetic flux stored within the permanent magnet is sufficient to contribute usable electrical energy to the device and how the device then generates more power than what is available in the permanent magnet". Title objection: the application "is seen as a transformer which relies on the concept of perpetual motion".
3. 2004-05-24, applicants' response (attorney's remarks plus a declaration by co-inventor Bearden): asks "that the requirement that the Applicants provide a demonstration be held in abeyance until after the Examiner has studied this amendment and Declaration". The remarks set out Bearden's theory in full: the magnet as a broken-symmetry dipole continuously absorbing virtual-photon energy from the vacuum (Lee and Yang 1957), the "static" field as a Prigogine dissipative structure and a Whittaker 1903/1904 set of bidirectional energy flows; in the MEG, the Aharonov-Bohm effect localises B in the core and leaves a curl-free A-potential outside, whose perturbation by sharp input pulses gives "strong E-field energy pulses, by the well-known equation dA/dt = -E", the claimed free input; COP vs efficiency and the heat-pump analogy (COP 3-4, "theoretical maximum ... about COP = 9.22", Halliday and Resnick); a worked feedback example (COP 5 open loop, 50% efficient feedback returns 1 part, 3 parts to load, "COP = oo"); Kron's "negative resistor"; local vs global energy conservation in general relativity (Hilbert 1917, Logunov and Loskutov, Kondepudi and Prigogine); negative energy from Dirac-sea holes and Bedini; "time-energy" E = tc^2 converted to spatial energy in sharp gradients.
4. 2004-07-26, final rejection: remarks "not deemed persuasive". The examiner refers specifically to FIG. 8 and the THS730 sentence; maintains that output above input violates the first law; argues a windmill's COP (output power over wind power input) is below 1. "Request for a model/demonstration has not been held in abeyance." All earlier grounds repeated.
5. 2005-05-16: abandoned (PlainSite: failure to respond). No appeal is in the item list.

Bearing on the claims

• Claim 5 (MEG, COP > 1 and self-powering). This is the one official record found in which a government examiner asked the MEG inventors for a working model or demonstration. The applicants asked to defer it, the examiner refused, and the applicants let the continuation lapse rather than demonstrate or appeal. Competing explanations, for the reviewers: (a) no unit could show net output under examination conditions; (b) cost/strategy: the parent patent already covered the device (the double-patenting rejection says the claims were not patentably distinct), so abandoning a redundant continuation cost little; (c) trade secrecy (Bearden's Aug 2002 letter says demonstrations were given only to potential financial partners). The file itself does not say why they did not respond.
• Interested parties: the examiner's reasoning is the agency's characterization; note that his windmill argument conflates COP (output over operator-paid input) with efficiency (output over all input), a point the applicants made fairly in their remarks. The applicants' remarks are an interested party's legal argument, written to obtain a patent.
• Claims 1, 2 and 4 (theory): the 2004 remarks are the most complete statement found so far of how Bearden connects his vacuum/Whittaker/broken-symmetry theory to the MEG mechanism (A-potential, E = -dA/dt). This fills the gap the arbiter noted: "the patent never mentions the vacuum, scalar potential or Whittaker". The link is made in the file wrapper, not in the patent.

Not done / next

• Read the Bearden declaration and the remaining 35,000 characters of the remarks; the ABN notice; the 892 references.
• Check whether the parent application 09/656,313 file wrapper exists anywhere: https://archive.org/details/gov.uspto.patents.application.09656313 returned "Item cannot be found". USPTO Patent Center (public) is the next place to try.
• Nothing downloaded (needs owner approval). The item offers PDF and full-text downloads.