Antigravity craft slips past patent officers
Philip Ball : 'Impossible' device gets seal of approval.
The US patent office has granted a patent on a design for an antigravity device — breaking its own resolution to reject inventions that clearly defy the laws of physics.
This is not the first such patent to be granted, but it shows that patent examiners are being duped by false science, says physicist Robert Park, watchdog of junk science at the American Physical Society in Washington DC. Park tracks US patents on impossible inventions. "The patent office is in deep trouble," he says.
"If something doesn't work, it is rejected," insists Alan Cohan, an adviser at the patent office's Inventors Assistance Center in Alexandria, Virginia. And when something does slip through, he says, the consequences are not significant: "It doesn't cause any problems because the patent is useless."
But Park argues that patenting devices that so blatantly go against scientific understanding could give them undeserved respectability, and undermine the patent office's reputation. "When a patent is awarded for an idea that doesn't work, the door is opened for sham."
Patent 6,960,975 was granted on 1 November to Boris Volfson of Huntington, Indiana. It describes a space vehicle propelled by a superconducting shield, which alters the curvature of space-time outside the craft in a way that counteracts gravity. The device builds on a claim by the Russian physicist Eugene Podkletnov that superconductors can shield the effects of gravity. NASA was at one stage investigating the idea, but it has become almost as notorious as cold fusion as an example of fringe science.
One of the main theoretical arguments against antigravity is that it implies the availability of unlimited energy. "If you design an antigravity machine, you've got a perpetual-motion machine," says Park. Shield half of a wheel from gravity and it will keep turning for ever.
The US patent office has long fought to prevent applications for patents on perpetual-motion machines. In 1911, after a constant stream of applications, one commissioner ruled that they would not be considered until a working model had been running for a year. More recently, inventor Joe Newman sued the office after it rejected his application for such a device. The court finally ruled against Newman in 1990, a decision that the patent office cites in its rules about which inventions are patentable.
Unfortunately, it is not always easy to tell what the implications of a patent are. One previous patent for a device using putative "hydrinos" — shrunken hydrogen atoms — to produce huge amounts of energy was granted. It is currently being reviewed after several scientists complained that hydrinos are impossible according to the laws of physics.
Park says he sympathizes with the difficulties that patent examiners face. "Their burden has gone up enormously," he says. "It's not surprising they get in a jam."
But Park argues that patenting devices that so blatantly go against scientific understanding could give them undeserved respectability...
Well, because it's one of their criteria: "... its own resolution to reject inventions that clearly defy the laws of physics..." any of these whacky inventors could use the fact something has been patented as "proof" it is workable, when it isn't, to sucker in investors. Patents are perceived as respectable. Joseph Newman, mentioned in the article quoted by Zz, got a lot of mileage for his "Energy Machine" based on the fact he had patented a few other things.loseyourname said:People shouldn't view the patent office as 'endorsing' anything. Their primary purpose is just to ensure that something is original. Whether or not it works - although one of their criteria - really shouldn't matter.
dgoodpasture2005 said:I enjoyed the read, thanks. I'm getting into physics, and I've been studying some "anti-gravity"(which has become known more scientifically correct as gravity-modification, anyhow) one of my goals is to start trying to build such a craft. My beliefs... sorry if i offend anyone... is that E.T. is visiting us, or watching over us, and they have to be getting here someway. I've seen a UFO myself... and it just doesn't make sense. It's worth a try, and it won't hurt anything, life is to short, crowded and boring to stay here on Earth..
ZapperZ said:Let's just say that if you posted this in the Physics section of PF, it would not last till daylight. There are PLENTY of other puzzling, important, and worthwhile issues in Physics. I'm sorry you had to waste your effort "getting into" something that is not a part of physics.
Zz.
zoobyshoe said:Well, because it's one of their criteria: "... its own resolution to reject inventions that clearly defy the laws of physics..." any of these whacky inventors could use the fact something has been patented as "proof" it is workable, when it isn't, to sucker in investors. Patents are perceived as respectable. Joseph Newman, mentioned in the article quoted by Zz, got a lot of mileage for his "Energy Machine" based on the fact he had patented a few other things.
It is not simply "their criteria", it is federal law...35 U.S.C. 101: "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." Notice that this is a pro se application (e.g., there is no attorney or agent of record, so the applicant had to prosecute the application on his own). A patent attorney or agent could be disbarred for filing patent claims that they know their client is not entitled to under the law, so it would be hard to find one who would take a case like this. Also notice that a "primary examiner" handled this case for the patent office. A primary examiner is a patent examiner's supervisor, so this doesn't seem to have simply fallen through the cracks.loseyourname said:I'm saying that I don't think it should be one of their criteria, because realistically, things like this are going to get through.
Perhaps, but when a primary examiner puts his name on the dotted line it means that a second layer of scrutiny has been traversed.loseyourname said:Isn't the definition of 'falling through the cracks' fit by just about anything that gets through but wasn't supposed to get through?
Patents are legal facts, and they enjoy a presumption of validity in court.loseyourname said:Anyway, I'm not trying to get into a legal argument here. Legal facts are just that: facts..
Why not? You can legally copyright any rap album you please without being asked to explain why it is useful. Most patent applications will be automatically published prior to examination unless the applicant requests otherwise in writing, so you can get just about any idea out into the public domain this way (and record a priority date for your idea). The examination process results in a legal decree, and a presumption that the invention is useful attaches. Nothing in life is perfect, and that's what courts are there for.loseyourname said:I'm arguing about how we should view the status of a patented technology/process/gene/whatever else they grant patents to. It shouldn't be looked at as an authority regarding what does and does not fit within the accepted physical paradigm.
I haven't seen the infomercials. Why do you think that an ionic air filter wouldn't work?loseyourname said:Heck, from what I know, ionic air filters are scams (most of what you see on infomercials probably doesn't even work), yet they are still patented.
I recommend that you read this entire page to gain some appreciation for the professionalism that is expected from patent examiners, and from whence the "scientific seal of approval" flows:loseyourname said:As the man quoted in the OP says, a patent on something that doesn't work anyway isn't really hurting anything - the main purpose is simply to protect intellectual property, not to stamp a scientific seal of approval. It's in the area of advertising that these things should be hit if they are actually making false claims. It's fairly redundant to add this proviso into patent law.
There are about 200 countries in the world that grant patents. Which of these countries has a system of patent law that you admire more than the U.S. system because of its lack of a "usefulness" requirement?loseyourname said:Just so know where I'm coming from, I'm a governmental minimalist. I think that our laws should be as simple as possible and that government bureaucracy should be as small as possible. Federal approval and licensing processes should be as quick and minimal as possible. When inspecting the quality of beef or approving a cancer treatment, go ahead and be thorough as we currently have the technological means to be; I have no problem with that. But the only reason a patent grants a piece of technology any sort of scientific credibility at all is because of the fact that the patent office claims to consider scientific credibility when it is approving a given piece of technology. That does not have to be the case.
I passed the PTO bar exam over ten years ago, and don't recall hearing patent examiners referred to as idiots before. I personally have great respect for them as a group, and especially for the patenting process which has evolved over centuries of handling every sort of invention imaginable.Moonbear said:Now that I know people who are patent attorneys and hear some of the stories (at least the parts they can tell without violating confidentiality), it sounds like there's a new crop of examiners at the patent office who are absolute idiots. My friends' impression is that they just can't find qualified people to hire, and when they do, they last a few years, and then go to work for law firms where they can earn good money without having to pass the PTO bar exam (some number of years experience working as patent examiners gets them exempted).
For example: I once saw a patent on a "hand gun anti-theft device"...it was a cinder-block chained to the hand-gun...I saw an I-V drip for the euthenasia of fish caught with a rod and reel (no such consideration for the bait though)...I saw an electric tooth brush with many gears and circular brushes so that you could bite down on it and have all of your teeth brushed at the same time...etc.Moonbear said:I'm not surprised something totally useless got through, it seems a lot does. The thing is, the claims in the patent itself can be narrow enough to claim usefulness, just not for the purpose the person is advertising it for. There's no requirement that an item be marketed for the same purpose cited in the patent. It could be patented as a toy, or for the design of the casing it's in being a protective covering, etc.
You can read any patent here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html (search for "6,960,975" to see the "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state" patent).Moonbear said:I'd have to see the actual patent to decide if something really got through that didn't meet the requirements.
There are about 2,000 new U.S. patents issued each week, and mistakes can happen.Moonbear said:Then again, my friend was involved in a case where he was reviewing a patent already issued and it became quickly apparent that the person only got it because he had harrassed the patent office so long and with so many appeals and wasted so much of their time that someone finally caved in and gave it to him just to get rid of him (I don't think it will hold up against litigation though).
Yes, the accelerating expansion of the universe may be evidence for an antigravity force in nature, but you couldn't propell a spaceship by any such force using U.S. Patent #6,960,975 as a guide.WarrenPlatts said:What about the accelerating expansion of the (visible) universe? Isn't this powered by some sort of antigravity? If so, it should be possible for humans to capture this process.
35 U.S.C. 112 Specification said:The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
WarrenPlatts said:What about the accelerating expansion of the (visible) universe? Isn't this powered by some sort of antigravity? If so, it should be possible for humans to capture this process.
inha said:We should waste precious time and resources researching ideas based on speculation with no basis on physics as we know it. How's that for sarcasm?
OK, fair enough. But the fact remains that the most revolutionary empirical advance in science since Einstein is the fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. If this is not a form of "antigravity", then what do you call it?ZapperZ said:You need to do a bit more reading on what exactly is "expanding". It isn't as simple as what you think.
dgoodpasture2005 said:sounds good... sounds like exactly the way everything else ever came about.
inha said:Give me a list of everything. I haven't seen a single article that started like "By randomly doing stuff without a purpose we discovered...".
inha said:Give me a list of everything. I haven't seen a single article that started like "By randomly doing stuff without a purpose we discovered...".
inha said:I know that. But those accidental discoveries weren't made in random but as a byproduct of actual physical research. It's not like someone slipped on a banana peel and discovered the electron as he hit his head on the floor.
dgoodpasture2005 said:A good scientist/inventor must never be scared to question science, and then look for answers to those questions, if not, we'd never get anywhere.
PATENT NONSENSE: ANOTHER PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE IS PATENTED.
It happens every few years. U.S. pat. 6,960,975, was issued on November 1, 2005 to Boris Volfson for a "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum." It uses a Podkletnov rotating superconducting gravity shield to "change the curvature of space-time." Of course, he does not mention the forbidden words "perpetual motion." The patent office rejects patent applications that use those words under the 1985 ruling in Newman v Quigg. These days you have to call it "zero-point energy." Ironically, the patent was issued shortly after arbitration required the Patent Office to reinstate Tom Valone, who lost his job in the fallout from the 1999 Conference on Free Energy (WN 2 Aug 02).
The applicant (Boris Volfson) filed a "petition to make special" on the grounds of "related to superconductivity", and the primary examiner approved it for issue within one week of it landing on his desk (the patent examination process typically takes years rather than days).USPTO-MPEP 708.02 Petition To Make Special said:IX. SPECIAL STATUS FOR PATENT APPLICATIONS RELATING TO SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
In accordance with the President's mandate directing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to accelerate the processing of patent applications and adjudication of disputes involving superconductivity technologies when requested by the applicant to do so, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will, on request, accord "special" status to all patent applications for inventions involving superconductivity materials. Examples of such inventions would include those directed to superconductive materials themselves as well as to their manufacture and application. In order that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office may implement this procedure, we invite all applicants desiring to participate in this program to request that their applications be accorded "special" status. Such requests should be accompanied by a statement under 37 CFR 1.102 that the invention involves superconductive materials. No fee is required.
Aether said:The applicant (Boris Volfson) filed a "petition to make special" on the grounds of "related to superconductivity", and the primary examiner approved it for issue within one week of it landing on his desk (the patent examination process typically takes years rather than days).
The patent is not classified as an antigravity spaceship,
Benjamin Franklin did not accidently discover that lightning was electricity while flying a kite. He'd been experimenting with static electric generators for some time and went out specifically to see if he could collect an electric charge on a metal object during a lightning storm. Static electric generators had been around quite a while in several versions and were a popular novelty and subject of interest for amateur scientists like Franklin. The fact his kite-and-key experiment succeeded simply proved that lightning is a giant version of the tiny discharges of static electricity eveyone's familiar with. This is extremely interesting, and explains a lot about lightning, but lead nowhere in particular as far as "the uses of electricity".dgoodpasture2005 said:that's true... but i do know some guy who went outside to fly a kite in a thunderstorm and was zapped by a bolt of lightning... only to later discover the many uses of electricity. If it weren't for things like that, we may not be typing to each other today :)