Patent 6960975 - Spaceship

I've compiled here some of the online publications pertaining to this patent. Enjoy.

from www.dose.ca

The U.S. government has granted a patent on a futuristic spaceship designed to approach light speed and escape gravity — by bending space, time, and probably the laws of physics.

This means you can’t build a ship able to do these things unless you get permission from Boris Volfson, of Huntington, Ind. This is his own invention, along with a new type of pinking shears.

from http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/

The USPTO issued Patent 6,960,975 on November 1, 2005. The object of the patent? A spaceship which moves by creating "a spacetime curvature anomaly outside the space vehicle". I kid you not. Read it for yourself.

I'm taking an intellectual property law course this semester. One of the requirements of a valid patent is the "utility" requirement, which has three components. First, the technology must have general utility, or in other words, it must actually do something productive. Third (you'll see why these are out of order in a second), the utility must be beneficial/moral - you can't get a patent on a biological weapon, for example. The second component of the utility requirement is "operability" - the patent must work as described. Apparently this requirement is now optional.

My back-of-the-envelope analysis of the social value of this patent (caveat emptor, as always) is below the fold.

from National Geographic

Volfson's craft is theoretically powered by a superconductor shield that changes the space-time continuum in such a way that it defies gravity. The design effectively creates a perpetual-motion machine, which physicists consider an impossible device.

..."The patent office used to say that they didn't patent perpetual-motion machines, but it turned out that there really was no such rule," Park said.

A 1990 federal court ruling against inventor Joe Newman, who applied for a patent on a motor that he said could return more energy than it consumed, was interpreted as precluding patents for such devices.

..."The effect that [the court ruling] has had is that patent seekers no longer call them perpetual-motion machines," Park said. "Now it's called capturing zero-point energy."

Zero-point energy is a real type of energy produced by the miniscule movements of molecules at rest. Harnessing this energy is theoretically possible, but the task seems, at least for the moment, practically impossible.

from Boris Volfson, the inventor:

This proposal is for the patented inflationary vacuum spaceship. The implementation of this proposal would take years and billions of dollars. All new spaceships cost billions to develop. However, it would be cheap, quick and easy to build an orange-sized, electrically-powered “breadboard” device of my patent. The device could be gently placed, with the shuttle’s mechanical arm, on the shadow side of the next space shuttle, fired up, and observed whether it moves comparatively to the shuttle.

from me:

Well, the jury's still out. No-one woulda thought that Einstein would come out of no where to be the foremost authority on physics in 1915. This guy, Boris, might be onto something. Granted, it's gonna take more than a few fridge magnets and an orange to make it work, but, what if it does? What if his theory is proven? Does this change the way that the world works? Certainly. The quest for perpetuatal motion has been at the basis of physics since Newton and his apple. Personally, I've always believed it to be possible, but, then again, the Laws of Physics say that it can't be.

Insofar as conventional motors are concerned, I buy that. No one can produce a machine that produces more energy than it consumes. It is for this reason that the machine that humanity has created for itself - industrial economy - concerns me. It is impossible to support humanity perpetually on this machine, eventually everything will be consumed and a dark age will follow. But, back to the point...

No conventional motor can be perpetual, but, a motor that exploits some natural energetic source (i.e. magnetism, gravity, nuclear forces) should be possible. We cannot consume gravity, but, there must be some means by this constant unchanging force can be used to generate energy. Magnetism, too, could prove to be a source of energy. The VanAllen belts, responsible for our protection from the solar winds and the architects of the Auroura Borealis, are proof positive of a naturally-occurring magnetosphere. Tapping into this energy, without its consumption, is a possibility.

Remember, something is only a problem as long as there is no solution. Good luck, Boris. Hope this one pans out for you.