USPTO issues anti-gravity patent

US 6,960,975 titled "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state," has a first claim

A space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state is claimed comprising:

a hollow superconductive shield,

an inner shield, the inner shield disposed inside said hollow superconductive shield, said inner shield comprising an upper shell and a lower shell,

a support structure, the support structure disposed between said hollow superconductive shield and said inner shield concentrically to said hollow superconductive shield, said support structure comprised of an upper rotating element and a lower rotating element,

upper means for generating an electromagnetic field, the upper means for generating an electromagnetic field disposed between said hollow superconductive shield and said upper shell, affixed to said upper rotating element at an electromagnetic field-penetrable distance to said hollow superconductive shield,

lower means for generating an electromagnetic field, the lower means for generating an electromagnetic field disposed between said hollow superconductive shield and said lower shell, affixed to said lower rotating element at an electromagnetic field-penetrable distance to said hollow superconductive shield,

electric motors, the electric motors disposed inside said hollow superconductive shield along the central axis of said hollow superconductive shield,

a power source, the power source disposed inside said hollow superconductive shield, said power source electrically connected with said upper means for generating an electromagnetic field, said lower means for generating an electromagnetic field, and said electric motors,

life-support equipment, the life-support equipment disposed inside said inner shield,

a flux modulation controller, the flux modulation controller disposed inside said inner shield, said flux modulation controller in communication with said upper means for generating an electromagnetic field, said lower means for generating an electromagnetic field, said power source, and said electric motors, and

a crew, the crew disposed inside said inner shield accessibly to said life-support and said flux modulation controller.

The patent derives from a continuation application: This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10/633,778 filed on Aug. 4, 2003, now abandoned.

The journal Nature and Robert Park have criticized the patent. Park notes it effectively is a patent on a perpetual motion machine. More specifically, Park writes: 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.

***from National Geographic -->

Robert Park, a consultant with the American Physical Society in Washington, D.C., warns that such dubious patents aren't limited to the antigravity concept.

"I might hear a complaint about a particular patent, and then I look into it," he explained. "More often than not it's a screwball patent. It's an old problem, but it has gotten worse in the last few years. The workload of the patent office has gone up enormously."

Some people might consider patents on unworkable products to be relatively harmless. Park, a physics professor at the University of Maryland at College Park, disagrees.
[LBE note: I have discussed some of the issues with the position of Bob Park and David Voss in Intellectual Property Today. Many of the physicists who complain about cold fusion publications were virtually silent about the publication of fraudulent work by Jan-Hendrik Schon.]

"The problem, of course, it that this deceives a lot of investors," he said. "You can't go out and find investors for a new invention until you can come up with a patent to show that if you put all this money into a concept, somebody else can't steal the idea. [Query: if the idea were truly fraudulent, who would want to steal it, and who could possibly infringe patent claims on something that does not exist?]



"[Approving these kind of patents can] make it easier for scam artists to con people if they can get patents for screwball ideas."



But despite their best efforts, mistakes are inevitable and patents may be granted to unworkable ideas. Some 5,000 examiners must currently handle a load of 350,000 applications per year.


*****
There was a comment at cnet:


It matters not whether the granted and thereby published
patents work. Any invention that fulfils the patentability
requirements (novelty, inventive step, described sufficiently so
that "persons skilled in the art" can build it) represents
knowlegde that if publised (as opposed to kept secret) enriches
the public domain, which is the only purpose the patent system
has. Most inventions today draw from this knowledge pool and
very often, an earlier patent which described a badly or non-
working apparatus has led other inventors to learn from it and
either improve upon it or helped them not to waste their time
trying out something that has already been shown to be of little
value, instead investing their effort in a different approach.


Note that there are separate requirements of written description and enablement in 35 USC 112. One of ordinary skill would have to construct the invention of the claims without undue experimentation (recall the Rochester case on COX-2 inhibitors).