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Anti-Gravity Device Patented
October_30th writes "According to the United States Patent Office website, Boris Volfson has recently patented a "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state", which is essentially an anti-gravity propulsion device." The validity of this patent remains to be seen, but the general consensus of the physics community seems to be that it is complete malarky.
Too bad Marty McFly is a fictional character.
we should harness gravity thusly.
let's learn how to block gravity waves on one side, and let the mass of the universe pull on the other side.
with "GRAVITIUM" (either a substance or energy field) blocking the pull of the planet completely
(in the shape of a disc at the bottom of our craft) the rest of the universe will pull us out of the atmosphere pretty damn quickly.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
does this mean we can get to mars before 2025?? or maybe even someother star?
and on slashdot....
I've patented patenting bullshit. I'll take my royalties now!
503 Sig Unavailable
The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
Anti-matter propulsion?
The comments out of the physics community, to say the least, have been much stronger than that.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
/me rushes off to get patent for inertial dampening
The real question is how can I, as an inventor, patent my time machine?
I mean, anyone can just go back in time with my intention and claim my patent!! WTF??
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
It's well-known that the only true anti-gravity device is a (Score:5, Funny)
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
...what I keep telling the scientists, this device has nothing to do with me!
Just like the patents for my cold fusion device and perpetual motion machine, plus convenient hair dryer.
Lots of bullshit gets patented. You don't even have to have a working device to get your idea patented.
Well, I'm going to fight back by patenting something already implemented and working. That's right, Slashdot, I'm gonna patent me some Gravity.
If it's "complete malarky" then nobody has anything to worry about, but if the guy were to actually make something out of this then doesn't he deserve the patent?
This should probably have been put in the "Funny" category, if anything.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
but the general consensus of the physics community seems to be that it is complete malarky.
Quick, patent malarky!
Table-ized A.I.
Indeed, many er ... slightly informed opinions on the antigravity patent topic available over here at Fark. Is this a good idea to cross-link Fark and Slashdot? ... maybe not, and then again maybe through this action I have begun the ultimate demise of Slashdot. See your doom before your eyes. Muhahahahaahahha
Well even they agree that the patent examiners have been duped and it would never fly. For a interesting compilation of discussions going within the community have a look at this article.
Though real science aside, it would be very cool if it worked.
Naw, its full of hot air..........hmmm
Table-ized A.I.
I recently patented a stopwatch that can freeze time. In theory, with the flux capacitor installed, it should work, and I own the patent. Of course, I don't have the technology to create my design. Moral of the story: You can patent anything, even if humanity doesn't have the tech for it.
If somebody does actually invent a way to do this in the next 20 years, they are going to owe this guy royalties bigtime.
;-)
I got to get that lightsaber patent application in.
Johnny
This sort of thing is common, you can make a lot of money with it. Take for instance the "Professor Searl" @ http://www.searleffect.com/ . Similar bogus anti-gravity technology, tragic tales of lost sisters, claims it was stolen by the government (and in several decades hasn't been able to make enother !?) , lots of other BS but I'm sure he's making some money with his junk physics books http://www.searleffect.com/free/store/store.html "The Law of the Squares" Series .
If this went through then I should have no problem patenting my Delorean with a flux capacitor!
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
This is why every patent application should have to be accompanied by a functional prototype demonstrating the efficacy of the idea being patented.
If the vacuum pressure density of the locale is modified to be substantially higher than that of the ambient vacuum, the speed of the vehicle could conceivably be higher than the ambient light-speed.
... beam me up, Boris!
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
But does it run Linux?
Or a Beowulf Cluster?
If you read the patent text he's basically describing the warp drive from star trek.
"whereby providing for the gravitational imbalance such that the lowered pressure of inflationary vacuum state is pulling said space vehicle forward in modified spacetime."
interesting i guess.
in normal fashion both slashdot and the reporting news outlet have got it all wrong. it's not a perpetual motion machine - becuase it requires input of a nuclear reactor to make it "go". It's no more a perpetual motion machine than a space probe launched from earth.
nor is this "anti gravity". the patent describes a device that will "modify" space time such that an area of "low pressure vacuum" and "high pressure vacuum" are created. the low pressure area is infront of the ship and the high pressure is behind the ship. the ship travels forward because it's caught in the middle. i guess.
not a physics major.
I for one welcome our new weightless overlords.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
I agree with you that it isn't a perfect fit for the YRO category. However, if womeone can patent anti-gravity space propulsion systems, just use your immagination what you could do for software or on the internet.
I'm going to go and patent my O(n^-9) sorting algorithm and then my new web browswer that doesn't need an internet connection to display web content.
Up to this point, this poste has been a troll, but what if in 5 years, someone does come up with a way to do better sorts or a way to show webpages without requireing a live internet connection? The point of a patent is to encourage inventors by providing security of a return on their investment. In this case, its yet annother example of how the current patent system is abused to stiffel innovation.
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
But you can still give the anti-gravity propulsion shield a five-star rating!
Next - Amazon offers "One-Click Patent Submission."
... the guy who finally makes it work won't have much trouble applying before you do.
Tweet, tweet.
Sounds a lot like H. G. Wells's cavorite.
Too bad the USPTO doesn't require a working prototype.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
from the patent text:
"The devices combining these capabilities may be able to move at speeds substantially higher than the light-speed in the ambient space."
Wow! I want one of those devices!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
if the guy were to actually make something out of this then doesn't he deserve the patent?
I don't think that's how it should work. He should only deserve the patent if he can accurately describe HOW to build such a device, even if he currently does not have the means build or test the device himself.
Otherwise people could go around patenting any idea, no matter how far fetched, and then hoping one day someone will figure out a way so they can cash in. I realize this is essentially what the Patent database has turned into, but that doesn't mean it's right. Otherwise, I'd patent this list of ideas for teleportation devices I have. Oh, and there was this one idea about a hot-chick-vending-machine...
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
sig fault
The validity of this patent remains to be seen, but the general consensus of the physics community seems to be that it is complete malarky.
Well, given this site's moderator's affinity for junk science it is no wonder that the story ended up here. You have to wonder what they are thinking.
an ill wind that blows no good
I'm going to patent using a large mass mounted to a spacecraft to alter the trajectory of space debris (AKA a big freaking asteroid). Then when the US gov contracts a company to build it when an asteroid is on an emminent collision course with earth in 2048 I'm going to be sitting pretty. Talk about playing chicken on an interplanetary scale....
...and the gravitational pull of the universe were significantly greater on one side than the other, or in any particular direction, your weight would change drastically as you travel around the earth. If anything, the centrifugal force (aka inertia) would cause you to fly up, but even that wouldn't be significant, at an acceleration of ~0.033 m/s^2.
webpage
Oh, and there was this one idea about a hot-chick-vending-machine...
Instead of Coke Classic, Mellow Yellow, 7 Up, it'll be Petite Blonde, Sexy Redhead, Seductive Brunette, Kinky Jet Black, Horny Asian, Senorita Bonita, and Hot Black Babe.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
We all know that the only real anti-gravity device is a (Score:5, Insightful)
.... mindset failure of teh US patent office.
The current state of the USPTO could allow me to patent a method for buying "hot stocks" now with information from the future based on my special method for "non-temporal pipelining" to send stock results from www.nyse.com a few months in the future to > /dev/hotstocks. With enough references cited, and some "work", I'm sure I could patent this.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
With all the engineering breakthroughs we had in the last two weeks, the next headline better be: There's a company in Israel that is creating hover cars that run on water and their lift is from anti-gravity. These cars actually generate hydrogen as they travel, so if you're running low on money, you can pull into any gas station to be paid for your excess fuel since their primary fuel source is perpetual motion. These cars can also fly in case you need to make a transatlantic voyage. Combined with the fact they can drive themselves to the destination, they also can automatically park themselves in the air when you decide to get out. While space travel is not standard with this car, you can get it as an option for those people who want to take a vaction to their property on the moon.
God spoke to me.
If some guy in Indiana wants to pay hundreds of dollars to patent stuff that (regardless of being real physics or not) can't possibly be implemented before the patent expires, I'm all for it. That means that if/when technology finally catches up it'll be public domain. He should go ahead and slip in a broad patent on near-light travel, and something about wormholes. To tell the truth, I feel the same way about gene patents. If they want to patent them all, let them. As many incredible advances as have been made in genetics, I somehow feel they'll be much more useful in twenty years. The goverment is too dumb to figure out what's obvious and what's not, so if we just patent [i]everything[/i] now and check back in twenty years, the problem will be solved.
Sendou Wave Kick!!
The USPO is suppose to prohibit patents that violate the 2nd law. What gives?
I know it's probably fake, but wouldn't it be nice? Though... why patent it if you aren't actually going to (at least try to) make it?
"How is this related to my rights, especially online?"
Well sir, technically, you have none. Nobody does. The internet is a (mostly) unregulated entity, where its not what rights a person has, but what they can get away with. This is my explanation for goats.exe and all the donkey porn flooding servers around the world.
I think the story was placed in that category because it was the best of the worst.
The screenwriters of the Stargate franchises could write a better patent application than that! In fact, I think it would be cool to apply for a patent on the Zero-Point Module and see if it gets granted.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No? No patents on technology which the U.S. Military would without any question want first dibs on and absolute subsequent control over until it became twenty years old and hopelessly out of date?
Really? No kidding?
-FL
Anti-Gravity Device patent you!
Fact 1: cats always fall on four feet
Fact 2: bread slice always falls with the butter side down
So...put a bread with butter on top of a cat, and throw it through the window.
Antigravity device ready.
One that hath name thou can not otter
> Apparently you can patent anything, even if it is utter nonsense... or by
> extension, even if you have no evidence that you've created something.
If it's nonsense then it'll have no effect on anyone. So what's the problem exactly?
What a worthless, bullshit patent system.
I'll bet 5 bucks I can patent the shape of my ass.
Since when is it good practice for any Patent Office to issue patents based on conjecture? There should be a valid working prototype before any patent is issued. Software patents are bad enough, but speculative patents are total b.s.
The approval of this patent (#6,960,975) is a testament to the stupidity of the USPTO, which certainly affects the rights of everyone. What's to stop someone from writing a program that strings words together in patent-application-ese and mass submitting them? Then find people who are violating your wonderful patent and sue them. Or just patent every single device ever seen or conceived of in Star Trek or other Sci Fi, and then sue as they become invented. Illustrating the stupidity (and absurdity) of the USPTO is definitely a rights-related topic.
rooooar
In soviet russia, gravity harnesses you...err...wait
NO! It's the end of the world! Never cross the STRE^H^H^H^H LINKS!
Because ScuttleMonkey likes to demonstrate his superiority by picking on poor little anti-gravity devices.
...When they find out that this thing runs Linux 2.7...
I'm going to file my own patent.
It'll be a patent for "something" that does "stuff".
I may have to file two seperate sub-patents. One for "Something that does cool stuff" and one for "Soemthing that does boring stuff."
I'll make millions!
The Internet is generally stupid
It seems I have read several science fiction books that used this principle. Isn't that prior art?
While we're on the topic, could we all agree on an informal protocol whereby the replies that actually are funny can be moderated Insightful instead of Funny, so that I can turn on the "ignore posts rated Funny" thing? Because half the shit marked Funny these days isn't really funny, it's inane self-indulgence. Occasionally, though, there is something funny, which I'd hate to miss.
-b
myselfmusic
Just exclude that use in your EULA., or even better, encrypt a feature in the control mechanism of your machine so that the only way the licensee could make such a use would be in contravention of the DMCA. Then, in a masterstroke of reverse psychology, sue the sh*t out of the licensee who does invalidate your patent, forcing said licensee to go back in time and prevent the DMCA from becoming law.
Unfortunately (for the rest of the world), you don't need to do any of these things though. You don't even need to patent your device. Heck, you don't even need to actually invent it. Just wait for someone to patent a time machine and then claim that they took away your invention (by preventing you from having invented it). They just weren't quite thorough enough though, since you still have the memory of the invention, though you can't remember quite how it worked (shame). You now demand the device be returned to you, the rightful owner.
If the other inventor turns out to be a charlatan, who then turns around and discloses that his invention never actually worked, making you out to be a perjurer. Just claim that they cleverly wrecked their own invention to invalidate your case and make you out to be a lier, by their going back and changing their own timeline. Now you've got them. You can sue them for destroying your invention together with the evidence of there having been a working time machine.
A much more heinous crime against you and humanity than mere theft. You'll probably be awarded all the money they received from VCs to start their company in the first place.
Temporal Lawyers will likely, however, be the only people who will ever benefit from this whole new legal avenue. You will probably go down in the annals of infamy as the person who gave rise to this new (hated) legal profession.
Worth a statue or two though, don't you think?
Like a lot of the patents that have been granted, this will just keep antigravity out of the general publics hands for a very long time. Just like that 100 mile per gallon carburator.
And it just goes to show that if you have the money you can get ANYTHING patented.
I do have a degree in physics, but I've forgotten so much it doesn't do me much good.
I do remember the Casimir Effect, however. This is a measurable phenomenon which is believed to be caused by vacuum fluctuations, the same mechanism responsible for Hawking Radiation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
What the h3ll is "malarky"??
I submitted a story on this that was much more skeptical and it was rejected.
First, since when does Robert Park's view represent a consensus in the physics community. Second, I have read the patent, and while the theory is a bit flawed, I posit a theory that is more consitent with current theory:
Collapse the space between you and a gravitational body far away from you relative to one that is close. This puts you in the shared gravitational well between the two, and decreases the distance you have to travel, to boot.
A problem I see increasingly is that people build devices and come up with poor theories to describe the device's workings, then established scientists come in and say that the theory is unworkable, which it is, but then falsely conclude that the device isn't doing anything significant of study. Then there are the "testers" of devices that come in, find a part that doesn't work like they expect, falsely conclude the part is faulty, repace the part with a conforming part, and of course the device doesn't work like it would if they ran it as it was, and then they declare, "See, the device doesn't work!"
This is an old idea from 1994.
d eachev.html#alcub
Alcubierre, M. "The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast Travel within General Relativity," Classical and Quantum Gravity, 11(5), L73-77 (1994).
Description: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/i
If someone really did develop anti-gravity systems, I'd have to say that the US PTO wouldn't have much to do with what would happen next.
Not quite on-topic for this thread, but has anybody read about the rumors regarding the B-2 stealth bomber? I have heard cryptic statements from Air Force personnel to the effect of, "It is a far stranger bird than you can imagine," accompanied by assertions from outsiders who insist that the aircraft employs a technology called "electro-gravitics." I also find it interesting that such a big plane can have a turning radius similar to an F-4 Phantom--it suggests something more exotic than a conventional jet airplane. Just wondering if there are any aeronautical engineers or knowledgeable laypersons around to offer their expert commentary.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
At one time you could be this smart and work at the patent office. (It was not the US patent office, but still.)
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Reading between the lines.. if I'm deciphering the patent correctly.. The closest to it I can think of would be the interference of High Frequency Gravitational waves. Now - theoretically - you can get these by use of High Frequency Superconductors. but it has nothing to do with the fact they are superconductors: It's due to the fact that the material that they calculate has the right quantum states to only be able to produce what should be high frequrncy gravitational waves under the correct conditions. Please note the continual use of words like 'calculate' 'should' 'theoretical'. Last paper I saw on the subject was from a forum talking about best designs for a generator, so they could ask for funding to see if it worked. anyway. According to general relativity, you have two HFGW fields intersect at the right angle, they will create a singularity at point of intersection. a small one. mostly temporary, as long as the field is up.. well. think about it, for a minute. See if you can work out why 'mostly'. anyway. THe general idea for propulsion is: I put 2 HFGW emmitters on the front of my spaceship. it generaets a singularity in frnot of it, and is pulled towards the singularity.. but as the emitters are moving forward, the singularity moves forward as well, so it never actually gets any closer. Please note you are /not/ generating energy from nothing, you are converting electrical energy into gravitational energy into kinetic energy.
Now. To the point of all this rample.
You may recall, a while back, a lab claiming they had noticed gravitational distortions with spinning superconducting magnets.
It just so happens that their superconducting magnet was made of the specific material in question. Spinning has nothing to do with it: they rekon it's curvature. (for focusing the beam.) So.. it ireads like this guy has read the earlier labs paper, and added in some crackpot ideas about how to get his hands on zero point energy.
personally? I'm not holding my breath, and waiting to see the results form the HFGW trials. in a decade or so..
The whole point is that the laws of physics, as we currently understand them, say that he can't make anything out of it, any more than he can make a perpetual motion machine.
You can say that because, as a Slashdotter, you know how broken the patent system is. Joe Public, though, probably still thinks that getting a patent on something means it must be genuine and useful. I see three possible reasons for the "inventor" applying for this patent:
(2 and 3 shade into one another somewhat.) The Patent Office should be able to realise when someone is making a joke at its expense. It should not be assisting people who want to perpetrate junk science or fraud.
(* note that he doesn't say what the experts' area of expertise is. I wouldn't like to say either, but it's certainly not physics.)
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
called gravity.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
His name is Boris. Enough said.
...he doesn't have to worry about prior art!
First off, this guy prosecuted this application pro se, that is, without a patent attorney or agent.
Secondly, this guy had the case made special on the grounds it dealt with superconductivity, one of the areas for which you can get your case advanced in the queue.The original application was filed in 2003, but was refiled as a continuation in 2005 without ever having even been docketed to an examiner, for reasons I couldn't discern from the publicly available papers
But, most importantly, the application was issued on the first action; no rejections under 35 USC 101 (lack of utility for not working), 112, first paragraph (not adequately disclosed), or 102 or 103 (prior art). Just straight out the door with a minor Examiner's Amendment to correct some formal claim language. There's a bunch of prior art of record, cited by the applicant, including some papers from respected scientific journals (such as Physical Review). The only hint of any consideration of the art, other than the cited prior art, is the examiner's reasons for allowance, the substance of which reads "None of the prior art of record taught or dislosed the claimed superconducting shield and electromagnetic field generating means structure."
And, with payment of the issue fee, it issued.
Google announced today that it will provide sexual gratification to all Mountain View, CA residents free of charge.
Local hookers plan to protest Google's subversion of traditional prick-and-mortar paradigm.
I haven't seen anyone else say this so I guess it falls to me...
In Soviet Russia, anti-gravity patents you!
This sig is neither interesting, nor humorous. Including meta-humor.
..taking applications?
ScuttleMonkey posted this as news.
I first saw the link last week.
In a comment on slashdot.
I can't remember whether it was from a thread complaining about patents, or
a thread complaining about ScuttleMonkey posting pseudoscience news.
Just for the sake of irony, I hope it was the second one.
I asked this on slashdot a long time ago .. so let me repeat .. Why not get a business methods patent on laws? Think about it .. imagine if someone had patented the idea for Social Security or Medicare .. she'd be rolling in cash. So next time you think of a great idea for the country, make sure you patent it before you tell anyone else or suggest it online. And if you can't sell it to the Democrats or Republicans, maybe there'll be a foreign government that would be interested.
All about innovation. Shit i should have patented this very idea.
If you had a Magical Cancel Earth's Gravity device, you'd be able to lift it with your legs, if you were diligent about it. Let's say you weigh 70 kg, and you can lift your own weight with your legs. So get rig up a machine kinda like a exercise device. You push with your legs, providing 700 N/10000 kg = 0.07 m/s^2 of acceleration. So to get it to 20 m/s, you'd have to push for under five minutes. ('Course, the craft would move away before then, but I'm pointing out that the force needed is minimal once you count out gravity. You just need a bit of patience.)
Besides, if you relied on the sun for lift, you'd have some trouble launching at night...
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
and 'POP' I have the image of Baron Harkonnen in my mind
Where's your proof that he doesn't have a prototype?
Just kidding.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
He sites H.G. Wells and cavorite as examples of his "invention"? What the heck is the patent office doing? Can we start patenting things in sci-fi books? If that is the case then I want to patent the flux capacitor, hyper drive, antimatter engines, ......
Now if he can produce a prototype space craft using this "technology" then he should get all of Bill Gates money and a lot more.
You Slashdot kiddies need to call up all yer ex-college buddies in Crystal City and tell 'em to knock off this bullcrap, or better yet go and find a job in the private sector.
Has a patent ever been invalidated based on the premise "We had no business issuing a patent on this"? I'm not talking prior art or technicalities, but "this was patently absurd".
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If it's nonsense then it'll have no effect on anyone. So what's the problem exactly?
It's not testable. Patents have no business being granted for something that isn't science.
It may be that this guy's device isn't nonsense. But perhaps it is. But at this point it's just a wild-assed guess that it might work. You shouldn't be able to patent that because then people won't do anything, they'll just sit around playing the patent lottery with ideas, which doesn't promote science and the useful arts.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
well, so much for my patent on Incomplete Malarky.
Patents are evil and they only serve to hinder society's advancement into the next age. Government should ban all patents or eliminate royalties.
\
$sys$gravity
It might use anti-gravity, but with the flux modulation controller on board, it'll never go faster than 88 MPH.
...a patent for anti gravity software
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
They said they ask these questions: "Is it new?" Quinn asked. "Is it useful, which means does it work? Is it nonobvious? And is it described in such detail to enable someone skilled in that technology to make and use it based on the description that must accompany the application?" The bolded questions haven't been followed in any of the controversial concept patents. And those questions came from the patent office itself. Our patent office must be a bunch of dopers.
Bob Park's Seven Warning Signs of Voodoo Science
This time its the GPAA. (Gravito-magnetic Propulsion Antigravity Association)
Well if I am understanding this low and hig pressure vacuum stuff, there is plenty of prior art.
1) All solid matter, including water and air is mostly empty space, or vacuum.
2) All rockets move from a direction of higher vacuum pressue, the exhuast, to lower vacuum pressue 180 degrees opposite. Okay, they do stop if they hit a solid area with even more of this so called vacuum pressure.
So every kid with a bottle rocket is an example of prior art on this one!
See subject.
This is bad, because inventor was supposed to disclose the invention to obtain a patent and this implies using established terminology to describe it.
Allowing a patent with made up terms is equivalent to allowing wildcards "I patent a thing * that does * and is useful" - the owner of the patent can try to define these terms as legal opportunity presents itself.
The PTO does not require a working prototype because it does not want all the patents to belong to huge corporations. Pretend you create a nuclear fission reactor that's table-sized. (You're like the second coming of Albert Einstein or something.) If the PTO required a prototype, you would have to find someone with a lot of cash to build the prototype to submit to the PTO. The corporation might steal your idea and take the prototype to the PTO by itself.
So while this lack of a requirement looks ridiculous in this example, there may be other more realistic places where it has protected the small inventor.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Actually,
We all know that the only real anti-gravity device is a (Score:5, Troll)
Neither make sense.
...then it's easy. You just have to know how improbable it is, probably. The tricky part is watching out for the lynch mob of respectable physicists afterwards.
I am Spartacus
To quote from the patent...
"A space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state is provided comprising a hollow superconductive shield, an inner shield, a power source, a support structure, upper and lower means for generating an electromagnetic field, and a flux modulation controller. A cooled hollow superconductive shield is energized by an electromagnetic field resulting in the quantized vortices of lattice ions projecting a gravitomagnetic field that forms a spacetime curvature anomaly outside the space vehicle."
If it's relying upon what (I think) amounts to a large and powerful electromagnetic field to basically lift itself off of the ground by using the simple principle of north and north repel each other naturally, then I say there's prior art in the Maglev train, though I don't know the design specifics of the Maglev, nor the full specs of this device.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
3/14 ... Pi day... hm... might be a joke... rather expensive one though if this is the case....
Sounds good to me...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Just build one and see if it works, a patent should contain all the information needed. That's what patents are for right? Right?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Or small companies with no ethics.
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
I don't think is an abuse of the patent system at all. After reading it I doubt it's validity, but it is hardly rediculous. It assumes the truth of lots of fairly unpopular but nonetheless debated theories. He assumes String theory is valid and that the cosmological constant changes in the locale of a superconductor, citing sources. Then he pulls that and a few other ideas together to make his device. It's all though there and the conclusions are not obviously wrong, and for a patent office worker, even with a bachelors in physics, it would be tough to outright deny. None-the-less, it makes good Science-Fi. He ties in all kind of popular scientific wonders together, and even has a good explanation of basics, like how time is the fourth dimension. If he did work for the Star Trek franchise I would be glad - this is a really great, well thought idea of a faster then light machine. So much so that I want to recommend you read the patent yourself. Don't think of it as anything except a good explanation of warp drive or the like. The holes aren't immediately obvious, unlike most other Sci-Fi you'll ever read.
Eat beans. Fart. Blast off. Anti-gravity device in a can.
Obviously the physics community has not been reading some of the Software Patents if they think this is malarky. :P
I think the guy who wrote this page: http://www.newpath4.com/enginewow.htm , which is a car engine that uses a sound wave implosion/explosion (sonofusion where the heated steam molecules implode AND the cold droplets of compressed air explodes -into the implosion vacuum- slamming the pistons) inside a closed engine cylinder, is the most likely candidate for the one who will come forth with anti-gravity. In fact, I believe he has. But, since it looks a lot like perpetual motion, attempting to obtain a Patent would be a waste of money. Which is GREAT since I oops I mean he doesn't have any. http://tinyurl.com/7aaca .
There are some more here as well, as well as some interesting inventions, which include a coffee mug powered stirling invention, plus reviews of many more anti-gravity patents.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
We all know that the only existing anti-gravity device is a (Score5, Informative)
You can't handle the truth.
Scientists are debunking it. Slashdotters are ridiculing it. Most sensible people on the street would at least doubt it. Junior-high-schoolers who stay half awake in science class would be skeptical. But put it in front of the US Patent Office and they sit there with the drool pooling in their laps and go, "Da-ah, OK!"
"The design effectively creates a perpetual-motion machine, which physicists consider an impossible device."
Um, I call BS. Perpetual-motion isn't considered impossible. We have superconductors, vacuums, and...um..space? Anything moving in space is essentially a perpetual-motion machine.
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
...so these sort of things shouldn't happen. I mean.... in Kansas you can dispense with science. In the real world they haven't unified the gravitational and electromagnetic forces. In Kansas they could probably claim it's the work of Scotty or Q. In the real world the high-temperature ceramics is just a relative name; and still requires *cold* temperatures. In Kansas Aladdin could probably just rub his lamp and conjure a nuclear reactor to generate electricity to power an electromagnet.
This isn't Kansas.
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From MPEP 2111.01(III)
III. APPLICANT MAY BE OWN LEXICOGRAPHER
An applicant is entitled to be his or her own lexicographer and may rebut the presumption that claim terms are to be given their ordinary and customary meaning by clearly setting forth a definition of the term that is different from its ordinary and customary meaning(s). See In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31 USPQ2d 1671, 1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (inventor may define specific terms used to describe invention, but must do so "with reasonable clarity, deliberateness, and precision" and, if done, must "'set out his uncommon definition in some manner within the patent disclosure' so as to give one of ordinary skill in the art notice of the change" in meaning) (quoting Intellicall, Inc. v. Phonometrics, Inc., 952 F.2d 1384, 1387-88, 21 USPQ2d 1383, 1386 (Fed. Cir. 1992))
Do it damn you! Do it. Man, you've managed to combine lame patents with a riff on the DMCA and the grandfather paradox as applied to IP law. Brilliant.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
...when pigs can fly.
No really, I will!
If Einstein were alive today and had just created the General Theory of Relativity would he have published it or attempted to turn it into something patentable?
Helium can be considered anti gravity. Put it into a big enough baloon and you can fly.
This device is malarky though. It would require a atmosphere first off. As you get higher in the atmosphere the gasses thin out and you would have demminishing returns.
True antigravity would require the ability to understand the exact forces that draw matter to other matter and then basically creating a reverse polarity to those forces. The problem here lies in the fact that if it turns out to be some portion of the makup of the atom then the only reverse of it would be it's anti unit. Combining those would be unwise.
Three examples of big inventions by small inventors please, not guesses that turned out right enough to sue someone either. Your table-sized fission reactor would be built out of parts and some parts would be unique and buildable, patent them. We don't need idiots dreaing shit up in their bedrooms to hog the patent office, we need workable solutions.
In that case a lot of the SF literature can be considered as prior art.
If someone comes up with a positronic robotic brain, it's not patentable
because Asimov have described it, at least to the depth of this patent.
The SF literature is full of detailed solutions to antigravity, space-
and timewarp, travel, modification and so on. They are very sound, maybe
except for some minor detail at the root of the explanation, that is 'left
as an excercise to the reader'. Even the space-ramjet has been invented in
some book I read, the idea being that if you go fast enough you can collect
enough interstellar hydrogen on the intake to run a sustained fusion reaction
and blow helium plasma out on the back, propelling you with almost light speed
costing you absolute nothing. In fact, it generates a lot of excess energy to
run the ship *and* if you put a bit of the collected hydrogen aside, you can
have fuel for an auxcilliary low-speed engine. Some minor things of course have
to be solved, such as the sustained nuclear fusion, but other than that, it should
be patentable, it was at least as well described in that book as the anti-gravitational
drive in this patent.
...to witness the infringement lawsuits over this patent.
This device is probably based on an already well-known phenomenon, called the Biefeld-Brown effect. Pretty interesting stuff; I hadn't heard about it until recently myself.
See this comment from this story which was (of course) published four days ago.
Does anyone hold a patent for one of those automatic hand dryers you find in restaurants that actually works and dries your hands?
Being unfortuantely involved in software patents, this is 100% correct
The physicists that get all worked up about patents on devices that are physically impossible are really out of touch; if it can't be built, it doesn't matter whether someone spent the money to patent it or whether some investor gets duped out of money in an attempt to build it. People with too much money on their hands don't need physicists to protect them.
The patents we should worry about are patents on devices that are obvious or already published. It is those patents that increasingly hinder research and innovation.
Do not get that mixed up - the author of the article did - silly!!
This is called the Bussard Ramjet. It wasn't invented in some sci-fi book, it was proposed by a physicist named Bussard, and then used in various books.
You didn't answer my question. So what? Why is it a lottery? If it's nonsense then it's not a lottery because there's no chance of 'winning' anything. And if it makes someone money because it's not nonsense then it was a valid patent after all.
I could be wrong, but I'm sure you're talking about Eugene Podkletnov - http://www.americanantigravity.com/podkletnov.html - he appears to have been the instigator of the whole rotating superconductor malarky.
It sets dangerous example for blanketing patent. While this anti-gravity device breaks all the existing research finding and most likely be fake, the fact that you can patent something without doing much can the nasty blanketing strategy to work.
....} property of..." In this way, the researchers who really know what they are doing will, sooner or later, discover they are trapped in my patent mine field. It can really kill innovation.
For example, nano-device nowadays are largely built up from carbon and silicon. I have no background in such area. But, I know that there are only finite number of elements. Then, I can create vague patent along the line of "manipulate the strong, weak, electromagnetic forces in between {arsenic, sulfur, indium, whateverium} to create small-scale device which improve the {mechanical, electrical, acoustic,
...you might have to wait a while. Things are a bit up-in-the-air at the moment.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
So much for wallowing in the royalties.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Antigrav is a bit early at this stage, but it still may ultimately be possible. In the sense that the 'vacuum' energy state may be able to be adjusted to provide gravitation, and uni-directional forces.
For a start, so far, conservation of momentum is just an observation of normal matter on average, and the equations of physics is taken from there. If conservation of momentum was really understood then it could be found if it always holds or just holds under certain conditions. This is just a piece of the work being done by the Calphysics Institute:
http://www.calphysics.org/
There are a number of papers now available on http://arxiv.org/ which indicate that the infinite vacuum energy may be real and not 'virtual' merely to satisfy Quantum Electrodynamics (QED).
Researchers include:
Alfonso Rueda
Bernard Haisch
Daniel Cole
Yi Zou
L. Nickisch
Jules Mollere
York Dobyns
And again on an "offtopic" thread.
Amazing
Has a patent ever been invalidated based on the premise "We had no business issuing a patent on this"? I'm not talking prior art or technicalities, but "this was patently absurd".
No. Example: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2178
You didn't answer my question. So what? Why is it a lottery? If it's nonsense then it's not a lottery because there's no chance of 'winning' anything. And if it makes someone money because it's not nonsense then it was a valid patent after all.
You're missing my point - it's a lottery because you don't have to know if what you're filing for is real or not. But there's a (perhaps small) real chance that what you file for is true. So rather than spend a million dollars developing a prototype you spend $10K of engineer and patent attorney time and file as many patents as you can. Given sufficiently bright engineers you'll file 100 patents with the same money and probably more than, say, 10%, of those patents will turn out to be licensable. You have no way of knowing in advance which ones they'll be, hence the lottery.
The problem here is "filing a patent you don't know to be real/provable/workable". Following to conculusion, we have 90% of the patent database filled with bogus patents and noone doing any real work. This isn't what patents were intended for and it's not good for society.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
you can't go back further in time than when the machine was created. not scientific, but watch Primer for an example.
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Finally, but most importantly, they released a paper this year showing that gravity may be explanable as the exact same phenomenon---due to the spacetime curvature caused by planetary objects, fixed objects on a planet experience quantum fluctuations accelerating passed them. This creates an ambient downward force (AKA gravity).
The trick they argue, would be to control vacuum coherence (similar to the "vacuum pressure"). Suggestions by others have been made that this could be done using supercond. disks. NASA was preparing an experiment with a large superconducting disk to see if it had an effect on gravity...based on the work of Podkletnov. But funding was cut months before it was to be executed.
And what if SOMEONE ELSE comes up with an actual device, and gets sued to hell for infringing on this guy's bullshit patent?
Besides, this same bullshit patent tactic can be used for software, internet protocols, etc. So how fucked-up the patent office is, very much matters to YOUR RIGHTS ONLINE.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Hence why the oil industry are patenting all the clean and useful methods of energy production they can. That way they get the positive press, but never have to develop them as it'll mean they keep themselves as the status quo for 50 years. Yay for them.
That quote doesn't address what the GP post was about, I'm afraid. It basically states that a patent applicant can provide definitions in his application for words that he uses there. GP was talking about the use of the phrase "vacuum pressure" without any definition provided.
There is one more thing to worry about - the particular patent abounds with junk terms like "vacuum pressure".
This would be a problem if this particular term were "junk", but it isn't. It's a well known term in the field of quantum electrodynamics. See, for instance, this document which provides a defintion.
You know, a few moments with google would have told you this.
I'd also point out that whether or not license fees can be extracted from a patent does not depend entirely on its validity (which is an unknown until it is - posibly very expensively - tested in a Court) or even on whether or not infringement has actually occurred (for the same reason). Not much money is ever likely to be made from patents that are weak because of their intrinsic absurdity of course - they're not likely to be held by those with the financial resources to wield them effectively, no-one's likely to be practising the 'invention' and legal costs involved in invalidating such a patent would surely be a minimum - but it is not inconceivable.
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My pardon.. I did not know this was used for Casimir's force.
Unfortunately, the only way it'll likely change is if patents get so ridiculous that they're unacceptable even to Congress and the corporations who apparently own it. I'm curious how far it'll actually go.
Meanwhile, lawyers are getting wealthier.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
For a second there, I thought you were talking about Research In Motion --the inventors of the Blackberry. They actually have people doing research, and building a product. They are being sued by a company which is basically a Virginia Law Firm, with a patent on something (none of the lawyers know anything about technology, but a lot about suing, and the law). They refuse a (SHOCK:$1.5 billion US dollar settlement), having produced nothing for it, nor having product to sell. They want to run Blackberrys out of the US. I suspect RIM will voluntarily pull Blackberries out of the US, and deny anyone from using any other part of it (which they themselves have patented heavily). So this appears to be a case where, patents can actually kill technology and innovation (already created an useful technology). Oh well. There's always China. The Chinese can have the innovative products, and the Americans can have all the lawyers! Woot!
"Informative"...
I believe it very succinctly addresses the issue. If he doesn't provide definitions as required by 2111.01, the patent will likely have extremely significant flaws. Any competent attorney would know that and would resolve these issues before the application is allowed.
> This isn't what patents were intended for and it's not good for society.
Why not? Who cares if there are 100 or 10,000,000,000 patents? Society is benefitting (very slightly) from the money it costs to register a patent, assuming it costs more to register one than it does to administer the registration. Given that there's no way of working out whether or not a patent has a chance of working, I don't see the alternative.
Why not? Who cares if there are 100 or 10,000,000,000 patents?
Patents are used for research and need to be searched for prior art before filing ('a patent search'). You've just increased the work of a patent search by 10x, for instance.
Society is benefitting (very slightly) from the money it costs to register a patent, assuming it costs more to register one than it does to administer the registration.
That seems to be the position of Congress - as long as it's turning a profit, anything goes.
Given that there's no way of working out whether or not a patent has a chance of working
Sure there is - require a working prototype. That used to be the rule.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Perhaps it would be easier for you to see the problem with this idea if instead of electromagnets, you look at an analogous situation with small particles, like marbles.
When you turn on magnet A, you are sending out a field which propogates in all directions. The field is composed of photons, which have energy E equal to E=hv, and a momentum p equal to p=E/c=hv/c. In our analogy, treat these as marbles sent out in all directions. The only real difference between photons and marbles in this case is that marbles have a rest mass, which isn't important in this problem. Because the marbles (or photons) are sent in all directions, then no net momentum will be imparted to magnet A. This is also the case in any symmetrical dispersement of particles, such as sending half the marbles directly towards B and half directly away.
When the marbles or photons reach B, if B interacts with them by capturing the marbles or turning on its field to interact with the photons, then it will receive momentum causing it to move. This is not is not a reactionless engine situation because it is not magnet A which it is reacting against, but rather the symmetric field of photons or marbles which was sent out from A. By reacting against the symmetric field, it changes the field so that it is no longer symmetric. Basically the end result is that B is moved in one direction, and the field produced by A has a net average momentum component in the opposite direction. What has happened to A after it emmitted its symmetrical field is irrelevant.
You could have the same effect if A was never involved, and B emmitted the same assymmetrical field that would result from the above process. Basically, it is a photon drive, using magnets instead of a flashlight, and it would waste a lot of energy if the magnetic field propogated in all directions. You'd be better off using the flashlight.
Cheers,
krysith
To use Bistro-mathmatics.
Anything else is just plain silly...
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According to my math 350,000 applications / 5,000 examiners = 70 applications pear year per examiner = 1.35 applications per week per examiner.
Does that seem like a heavy workload to you? Granted, I don't know anything about these applications, but it makes me think about social workers who juggle 20, 30 or 40 cases simultaneously.
Just my $0.02. Feel free to disregard as you see fit :o)
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Ah, sorry, I thought you were trying to argue the opposite position of what you were. My mistake. :)
Ah, no trouble. Glad I didn't flip out ;)
Yes it is. The universe did it already.