Stephen R. Gray

Stephen R. Gray is the only person who ever shared a patent with Stanley Meyer. His name is on Meyer's first patent, the solar heating system of 1975, and on nothing else of Meyer's. This page gathers what the record says about him, which is very little.

The patent

US 3,970,070, *Solar Heating System* was filed on 3 September 1975 (application 610,051) and granted on 20 July 1976. The front page names two inventors: "Stanley A. Meyer, 2931 Bryden Road; Stephen R. Gray, ... Allegheny Ave., both of Columbus, Ohio 43209." No company is named as assignee; the two men filed it themselves.

Bryden Road was the house Meyer shared with his second wife, Donna. Gray's address on Allegheny Avenue was a short drive away.

The patent describes the system that became the Solar Silo: a collector of "light guide lenses" over a focusing lens, an insulation area and a storage section, heating air or water for a house.

The second application

The patent refers to another filing made on the same day: "The 'Light Guide Lens' of the co-pending application filed: Sept. 3, 1975; by the same inventors herein." So Meyer and Gray filed two applications together that day.

The lens application did not issue in that form. Meyer's own Light-guide lens, US 4,275,950, was filed on 4 February 1980 in his name alone, and it makes no reference back to the 1975 application. Everything else of the solar years is also in Meyer's name alone: the light-guide lens drawings he registered for copyright in 1978 and 1979, the multi-stage solar storage patent of 1981, and the SOLAR SILO trademark, filed in 1980, which claims first use on 18 June 1975.

What the record does not say

• What he did. The patent does not say which part of the work was his, and no other source the archive holds describes him.
• Where he went. The Grove City Record's articles on the silo in 1976 name other helpers: weekend volunteers, and Charles Richardson, "formerly associated with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources", who "joined Meyer to work full-time on the system". They do not name Gray. Neither does any later article, tape or list in the archive, including Jim Miller's lists of the people around Stan.
• Other patents. None. US 3,970,070 is the only patent with Stephen R. Gray of Columbus as inventor.

Not the same person

There is a Stephen R. Gray in academic research today, whose name turns up often in searches. Nothing connects him with the Columbus co-inventor of 1975, and the archive treats them as two different people.

Still open

Who Stephen R. Gray was, how he came to work with Meyer in 1975, and why his name dropped off the lens. If you knew him, or know what became of him, the archive would like to hear from you.