Patent Office Grants Patent On Anti-Gravity Device
from the physics-is-for-pansies dept
It's absolutely true that you can get a patent on a technology or concept that you haven't built yourself. While many of us find this to be extremely problematic, plenty of patent trolls love the concept, because it lets them lock up all sorts of ideas. Then later, when someone else actually builds it, they can trot out the patent and squeeze the real innovator for money. However, should you be allowed to patent ideas that, not only haven't been built, but go against the laws of physics? Apparently you can. The US Patent Office has handed out a patent for an anti-gravity device. While it's true that there are some who believe that anti-gravity devices are possible, it would seem like a working model would be a fairly important part of the process before you hand out a patent like this to someone. What's next, a patent on x-ray vision or faster than light travel?
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Antigravity
It was only a 2% reduction, and some of what was claimed I do not believe (such as the field extends forever rather than gets weaker at distances) but meh I havent researched it anywhere near enough to comment either way.
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this sounds like a bogus story
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Re: this sounds like a bogus story
Patent #: 6,960,975
Time it takes to look it up yourself: Two minutes.
Learning how to use the internet: Priceless.
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FTL
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Re: this sounds like a bogus story
Oh wait. I just saw where this 'news' came from. If you can call it that.
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Re: this sounds like a bogus story
For everything else... there's Mastercard.
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You all seem to forget...
Here are some examples:
"Anti-Matter"
The staple of sci-fi for years, its existance is now scientific fact.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/antimatter_sun_030929.html
"Faster Than Light Particles"
Recently particles that travel faster then light were discovered.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/FTL.html
"Black Holes"
The existance of these were confirmed by the Hubble Space Telescope.
http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/Education/BHfaq.html
"Rail Guns"
Sci-Fi once again meets Science Fact.
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/department/ece/railgun/
"Ion Propulsion Engines"
NASA's Deep Space One used an Ion Propulsion system for thrust. Check out the JPL website for info:
http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/
"Trackter Beams"
No longer sci-fi, there is now a working prototype!
http://dpnc.unige.ch/ams/gallery/cern2003.html
"Organic Computers"
They are also becoming reality. This is an older site, there has been significant strides in this technology in recent years.
http://organics.eecs.berkeley.edu/
"Nanotechnology"
Microscopic machines. More sci-fi meets science fact..need I give any more examples people?
http://www.nano.gov/
There is a very active antigravity development community. Look at this page...
http://www.americanantigravity.com/index.shtml
and this one...
http://www.amasci.com/freenrg/antigrav.html
and a corporation is getting into the act...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2157975.stm
Don't write off something as fantasy until you've researched it enough. That's what's wrong with the world of science today, eveyone is too shortsighted so see the truth. I mean, nobody predicted that you'd be able to run electrical devices off a machine that synthesises hydrogen into pure water and oxygen 10 years ago (hydrogen fuel cells). Wake up people and smell the coffee!
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Patents on exceeding speed of light
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Patents
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Re: Patents on exceeding speed of light
Shouldn't showing something as actually possible make sense as a pre-req before granting a long term exclusive monopoly?
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Re: Patents on exceeding speed of light
I mean what will something like this really do?
I'll tell you. It will make all of the other millions of possible inventors of anti-gravity decide it's not worth their time because even if they do figure it out, they will be violating the patent by someone else.
What this does is significantly reduce the total number of people working on this research. Which in turn, means actually figuring out anti-gravity will take many many many years longer.
Just like with open source, the more people you have working on something openly, the quicker it will be done. It will also be without flaws much sooner.
Fix the patent system so EVERYTHING doesn't end up like NASA; taking 50 years to accomplish ANYTHING AT ALL.
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Re: FTL
Now as to the question of if Time Travel is possible, check out the Science Fact article "The Theory and Practice of Time Travel" by Larry Niven.
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Re: You all seem to forget...
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Re: FTL
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Re: Patents on exceeding speed of light
I've got a really innovative improvement to the neutron bomb. Would you like to try my working model before I patent it?
seriously, there's many inventions where the paper engineering is a valid proof of the concept (the math checks out, no new physics, etc) but it's not practical to build a meaningful working model.
A good example of this is the statite, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite
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Will it work?
http://www.enterprisemission.com/antigrav.html
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???
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Time travel vs. patent law
Whereas, patents are granted on a "first to invent" basis;
Therefore, faster-than-light travel (and time-travel variants thereof) are not eligible for patent protection, due to prior art that may be created at some point in the future.
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