Apparently You Can Patent Anything

I am sometimes asked, by people who remember that I once wanted to practice intellectual property law, whether I practice patent law. The answer has always been "no," as patent law is an unusually specialized area in which the practitioners often possess engineering degrees. However, if one recent patent granted recently is any indication, maybe I should have looked into it more closely. They seem to be doing some pretty interesting things over there these days.

There are too many great parts of the patent claim of this device to excerpt, but let's start with the abstract:

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. The spacetime curvature imbalance, the spacetime curvature being the same as gravity, provides for the space vehicle's propulsion. The space vehicle, surrounded by the spacetime anomaly, may move at a speed approaching the light-speed characteristic for the modified locale.

It's a spaceship! It travels faster than light!

This invention concerns devices self-propelled by the artificially changed properties of the pressure of inflationary vacuum state to speeds possibly approaching the light-speed specific for this modified locale. Furthermore, this invention concerns devices capable of generating the spacetime anomaly characterized by the elevated vacuum pressure density. The devices combining these capabilities may be able to move at speeds substantially higher than the light-speed in the ambient space.

As Lee Iacocca might say, if you can find a transport with a better flux modulation controller, buy it!