INVENTOR Branko Babic has accused Prime Minister Tony Blair of ignoring his pleas for help in clawing back £100m he claims he is owed by US oil firms.

Mr Babic, of Summertown, Oxford, appeared in the Oxford Mail in March, claiming he had not picked up a penny in royalties for his idea on how to extinguish burning oil wells, which he dreamed up in 1991.

The method was used successfully by dozens of American oil companies called into extinguish hundreds of burning wells in Kuwait, following the Iraqi withdrawal in the wake of the Gulf War. The brainwave involved using a crane to lower a tall metal tube onto the burning well. The tube acted as a chimney, drawing oil up into it and causing the flame to burn at the top. The well then cooled down, allowing engineers to repair it.

Mr Babic says the oil firms reaped in £2bn in payments for using the method but says even though he patented the idea, he has not been paid his share.

Following the Oxford Mail's story, Mr Babic wrote to Mr Blair and the Department of Trade and Industry, but was told his only course of action would be a lengthy court battle he says he can't afford.

Mr Babic said: "Everyone who is in a position to do something about plagiarism is avoiding the position as if it were the plague. Everybody knows and yet no-one will help me retrieve the stolen money.

"I have developed exceptionally useful technology which has earned billions for third parties. I have complied with all rules and regulations, at very considerable sacrifice, governing intellectual patent law and still the very valuable intellectual property protected by these mechanisms is stolen with impunity."

Mr Babic's letter from the Prime Minister referred him to the DTI, which says it cannot help him either.

In a letter sent to him from the DTI, Ms Barbara Squires, from its intellectual property policy directorate, told him: "Patent rights are private rights and, as such, it is for the right owners to enforce.

"I am sorry we are unable to help any further."

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