An antigravity patent that accidentally got through

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...

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.

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..

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.

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 percieved as respectable. Joseph Newman, mentioned in the article quoted by Zz, got alot of mileage for his "Energy Machine" based on the fact he had patented a few other things.

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.

Isn't the definition of 'falling through the cracks' fit by just about anything that gets through but wasn't supposed to get through?

Anyway, I'm not trying to get into a legal argument here. Legal facts are just that: facts..

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

I'd have to see the actual patent to decide if something really got through that didn't meet the requirements.

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).