The University of Utah has made a final ruling that it will refuse to provide records sought by the Deseret News concerning the amount of money paid to the U. for the right to use its claimed "cold fusion" technology.
The ruling was made by Gregory C. Thompson, listed by the university as its archivist and records officer. The Deseret News had appealed to him seeking information about the amount of money to be paid to the U. by a company called ENECO for "cold fusion" rights.On Dec. 2, 1993, Richard K. Koehn, vice president for research, told the paper that ENECO agreed to pay the university an initial licensing fee of more than $100,000 but probably not more than $300,000.
However, he refused to state a more specific amount when asked by the Deseret News.
The paper then filed a request under the Government Records Access and Management Act, asking for the dollar amount of the licensing fee. However, on Dec. 30, 1993, Karen McCreary, associate general counsel, refused to release the information, saying the matter was "classified as `restricted' " under Utah code.
Jeff Hunt, a lawyer who helped draft the section of the code that McCreary cited, said the law was not intended to prevent the public from learning about such matters.
Rather than keeping financial matters secret, the sections are intended to protect proprietary technology, he said.
The Deseret News next appealed to Thompson.
Thompson replied Wednesday that "as the designee of the chief executive officer of the University of Utah," he had reviewed the matter.
"I find the requested information to be correctly classified as `protected/restricted' by the University of Utah," Thompson wrote. In addition, he said, ENECO requested in writing that the information be withheld from the public.
According to the Deseret News' letter to Thompson, the paper is not seeking proprietary information about technology.
"What we would like to determine is more general; something interesting to the citizens of Utah, who financed `cold fusion' research and patent efforts, at least to the tune of a $5 million appropriation," the letter said. "That is, we would like to determine the cost benefit of the `cold fusion' venture."
The Deseret News intends to file an appeal with the State Records Committee.
The university's failure to release the information is one more twist in the cold fusion controversy.
In 1990, the university disbursed an "anonymous" $500,000 behest for cold fusion research. However, it turned out that the source was not a private donor, as many believed, but a university fund.