Patentable device to destroy the universe?

[osmosis]

Reading SWIFT got me thinking about perpetual motion machines.

If you could actually create a machine that outputs >100% of it's input, what would stop you from feeding the output back to the input and creating infinite energy instantly? The entire universe would be destroyed!

I wonder if such a device would be granted a US patent.. it would be a great joke on them if they let it slip through. Think of it: patent #XXXX - Universe Destroyer.

 

[PixyMisa]

What if they ask you to demonstrate a working model?

 

[Tumblehome]

Or, invent the "Universe Creator" and become God.

As far as I know, it's never been done before.

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Infinite energy? Sure. Instantly? Even if those crazy models worked, it wouldn't be instant now would it? Also, once it ratcheted up to a certain point, the machine's going to break.

 

[lionking]

Reading SWIFT got me thinking about perpetual motion machines.

If you could actually create a machine that outputs >100% of it's input, what would stop you from feeding the output back to the input and creating infinite energy instantly? The entire universe would be destroyed!

I wonder if such a device would be granted a US patent.. it would be a great joke on them if they let it slip through. Think of it: patent #XXXX - Universe Destroyer.

The other thing that amuses me is that proponents of these machines talk about 400% over unity and the like. All they need is 100.0000000..........1% and that would do the trick!

 

[Zep]

The only "400% over unity" involved is either their wool-mask-pulling power, or their personal ratio of dumbness to perception.

 

[Hellbound]

This reminds me of a sci-fi short story I read a while back, about the invention of the first light-speed drive. Because Einstein's equations don't say you can't reach light-speed, just that it takes infinite energy.

Of course, the catch is that it also gives the object an infinite mass...which means and infinite gravitational force, which means an instantaneous gravitational collapse of the universe...

IN the story, it was the sevententh time the drive had been created, tested, and started a new Big Bang

 

[Brown]

Here's a link to my extensive writings on patents in another sub-forum. There are links there to some perpetual motion patent applications (NOT issued patents) as well as to some issued patents based upon questionable science.

For kicks, I checked to see if there are any REAL patent applications pending before the United States Patent and Trademark Office that involve the "universe." Indeed there are! Some of them are legitimate, but there are a few that are, well, off-center.

Ross model of the universe:

[0024] I have proposed here a process for describing everything in the universe. My preferred process is in the form of a model. It is the simplest yet model of the universe. I call my first preferred model the "The Ross Model of the Universe" or the "Ross Model". Processes described and claimed herein can be used to describe and explain all elements of the universe. The model includes a single fundamental particle having no mass and no volume but having a charge of plus e or minus e (+or -1.602.times.10.sup.-19 Coulomb). I have named these particles, "tronnies".

Simplist yet process for describing the universe (by the same inventor):

How Do I Convince a Skeptical World that I Have Found the Secret of the Universe?

[0033] Some of the smartest people in the world have been searching for centuries for a model of the universe as simple and all-inclusive as the one briefly described above. A natural reaction of some people is to reject any model so simple as this one on the basis that if it were that simple someone would have proposed it long ago and it would have been accepted. However, if and when my model is ultimately confirmed to be basically correct, many will probably claimed to have thought of it long ago. This is the main reason why I have been submitting my ideas as I have developed them over the past three years as patent applications to the United States Patent Office. Earlier versions are described in patent applications (identified in the first sentence of this specification) that have been published as application by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in USPTO web pages. The published applications can be found by searching with "Ross" as inventor with the addition of a key word such as "neutron" or "proton". With these publications it should be clear that I am the discoverer of these mass-less, volume-less point particles (pointicles) with a charge of e and which always travel as fast or faster than the speed of light and are the building blocks of everything in the universe. I believe that I have discovered the Secret of the Universe. This secret was right before the eyes of Professor Einstein, Professor Feynman and all of the other great scientist who have spent much of their lives in search of these elementary pointicles. My problem now is: "How do I prove it?"

And here's a good one, in which the inventor thinks he can get one hell of a lot of energy at no cost, according to his Abstract. Presenting a written and diagram discription of a free energy electric motor :

Presenting a free energy electric motor that is a motor that produces much greater power than it uses to run it, because the armature has no magnetic coil windings where it is comprise only of iron and is motored by a timed sequence of intermitting electrical excitation of the stator magnetic coils. Consequently it has no ability to generate electricity while motoring thus having no resistance. (unlike all other electric motors use coil winding on the armature.) This enables the armature to ultimately reach light speed, being the known speed electrons travel. Having this motor in the environment where it can reach this speed. Its power output versus the input power will be enormously greater. E=Mc.sup.2. Even having the motor in a gravity environment, great enough speed could be sustained to arrive at power outputs being many times greater than the input power. Thus arriving at free energy.

 

[NobbyNobbs]

I state the following knowing full well that the US Patent Office is often frowned upon by Randi and many others here. I am fully prepared to take the brunt of jokes at my expense.

I am a relatively new employee of the USPTO, currently training to be a patent examiner. There's a ton of information to be learned, but among it is this little tidbit: the patent office does its very best not to grant patent to ideas that break the laws of nature. There's a term for it, "judicial exception". The term refers to the fact that originally, the courts deemed as patentable "everything under the sun". Then they thought about it, said "oops", and created judicial exceptions. Judicial exceptions include:

-laws of nature (you can't patent gravity)
-abstract ideas (you can't patent the color blue)
-mathematical constructs (you can't patent pi)
-things that break the laws of nature (you can't patent PPMs)

When we see one of these, they come under 35 U.S.C. 101. They are unpatentable.

(By the way, Randi was incorrect. It is true that the one and only invention the USPTO requires a working model of before it grants a patent is a PPM. I could quote you chapter and verse, if anyone wants it.)

Mind you, sometimes it's difficult to tell. The patent attorneys that the applicants hire couch the invention in so much language that it's often tough to figure out just what they are claiming to have invented.

I think one of the reasons the USPTO comes under fire so much is that it grants patents for seemingly stupid stuff. The thing is, the PTO isn't charged with making sure that an invention works, or is marketable, or is a good idea. We're only charged with making sure it hasn't been done before (basically. That's actually a very simplified way of putting it.)

This is why you get patents for stuff like "nose bleed detectors" or whatever. It's not our job to make sure the invention isn't stupid, just that the application is proper.

My 2 cents. I now open my arms and embrace the flames.

 

[Buckaroo]

Dang it Nobby, as a new examiner too, I was putting together a lengthy entry (was even gonna send it to Mr. Randi) that made exactly the same points you just did. I hate being beaten to the punch.

I'd just add that critcizing the USPTO for issuing "silly" patents is a lot like criticizing the Copyright Office because the latest Michael Crichton novel sucked.

There also seems to be more than a little bit of confimation bias here, in the way that the vast majority of patents that are dealt with appropriately are ignored, but the few that slip through the cracks (as will happen in ANY production-based environment) are held up as evidence of Something Rotten in Denmark.

Don't know about yours, but I think my TC averages about a 1% allowance rate, which is just plain inconsistent with the picture of us as scientific illiterates letting though any damn-fool notion that crosses our desk.

 

[Buckaroo]

Duplicate post. Sorry.

 

[slyjoe]

I'm glad I know where to go to find patent examiners.

My only issue with the patent office is how long it takes to process a filing. Is there any end in sight?

ETA: BTW, except for the time lag, I personally think the USPTO does a great job. Some of the patents we submit are not simple, and slogging through them has to be difficult.

 

[Buckaroo]

Here's a link to my extensive writings on patents in another sub-forum. There are links there to some perpetual motion patent applications (NOT issued patents) as well as to some issued patents based upon questionable science.

For kicks, I checked to see if there are any REAL patent applications pending before the United States Patent and Trademark Office that involve the "universe." Indeed there are! Some of them are legitimate, but there are a few that are, well, off-center.

Ross model of the universe:

Simplist yet process for describing the universe (by the same inventor):

And here's a good one, in which the inventor thinks he can get one hell of a lot of energy at no cost, according to his Abstract. Presenting a written and diagram discription of a free energy electric motor :

So the fact that the USPTO has some applicants who are clearly insane is somehow an indictment of the agency?* Cranks abound any place where you've got a combination of tech and the potential for an imprimatur of legitimacy. Talk to the NSF sometime -- they've got stories that could curl your toes (which I know firsthand, having worked there in a previous job).

*ETA: After looking at Brown's thread, I think I may have misunderstood this post. Apologies for jumping on you here, Brown, without doing my homework! You and I appear to be of like mind.

 

[Buckaroo]

I'm glad I know where to go to find patent examiners.

My only issue with the patent office is how long it takes to process a filing. Is there any end in sight?

ETA: BTW, except for the time lag, I personally think the USPTO does a great job. Some of the patents we submit are not simple, and slogging through them has to be difficult.

Thanks for the kudos! It can be rough, and the lag you mention makes it harder, what with our semi-unrealistic production quotas. Unfortunately, I don't think there will be an end in sight for some time. We've got about a five-year backlog right now. The PTO is in the middle of a huge hiring campaign to deal with this (1200 new examiners this year, and the same number planned for the forseeable future) but as quickly as applications come in, we may never catch up!

 

[Horatius]

I state the following knowing full well that the US Patent Office is often frowned upon by Randi and many others here. I am fully prepared to take the brunt of jokes at my expense.

I am a relatively new employee of the USPTO, currently training to be a patent examiner.
....
My 2 cents. I now open my arms and embrace the flames.

Dang it Nobby, as a new examiner too, I was putting together a lengthy entry (was even gonna send it to Randi) that made exactly the same points you just did. I hate being beaten to the punch.

...

which is just plain inconsistent with the picture of us as scientific illiterates letting though any damn-fool notion that crosses our desk.

Hey, nice to see some other patent examiners around here. I'm an examiner with the Canadian Patent Office, so I'm sympathetic to your complaints about being the brunt of jokes.

Brown and I have had some interesting discussions on these issues over the last year or so, and it would be interesting to see what you guys have to say.



Just try not to patent any more sticks, okay?




Come on, you knew that was coming, right?

 

[Horatius]

The PTO is in the middle of a huge hiring campaign to deal with this (1200 new examiners this year, and the same number planned for the forseeable future)

Damn that's a lot! I'm involved in training here in Canada, and know how much work that is. I can't imagine the investment in time and manpower training that many people would take. For comparison, we've hired about 300 new examiners over about the last 5 years!

 

[Brown]

(By the way, Randi was incorrect. It is true that the one and only invention the USPTO requires a working model of before it grants a patent is a PPM. I could quote you chapter and verse, if anyone wants it.)

To be a little repetitious, let me once again provide a link to the other thread. I do some chapter-and-verse stuff there. Comments about the subject matter there would be welcome.

By the way, has anyone pinged Mr. Randi with an e-mail about these two threads? He might find the discussion interesting.

It has never been my intent to put Mr. Randi down or to read him the riot act because he was in error about what he called "a canard." He is a smart guy, and everything I have seen indicates that he is always interested in learning. If he was operating under incorrect assumptions about the Patent Office, he is open to polite but frank correction. I suspect he would take the gravest offense if it were suggested to him that he was a person who did not care what the actual facts were, and that he was more interested in being outraged than in being right.

With all due respect to our friendly neighborhood patent examiners, there are a lot of reasons to be a bit irritated at the Patent Office, but one should strive to be irritated about things for which the Patent Office is actually responsible, and one should generally want the degree of one's outrage to be comparable to the degree of the problem.

Some of Mr. Randi's irritation is legitimate, but that irritation might not be properly directed to the Patent Office. (I give examples in my other thread.)

 

[Buckaroo]

But to get back to the point of the OP... wow, that's an implication of "over-unity" that I never thought of. I 'd like to see the purveyors of these devices explain why, if they're real, they shouldn't all be regulated as WMDs.

 

[Brown]

*ETA: After looking at Brown's thread, I think I may have misunderstood this post. Apologies for jumping on you here, Brown, without doing my homework! You and I appear to be of like mind.

I should add that I took no offense.

It is an apparently common misconception that patent applications are in some way "approved" by the US Patent and Trademark Office. After all, the applications are on the official USPTO website. And if you click the "Images" button, you'll see that they look, at first glance, like authentic patents.

But any nutcase who wants to draft something and pay the fees can have it published in the same fashion. Like this individual, who seeks to patent his cure for AIDS:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] "In God We Trust" is written all over our American currency. I believe God is asking us to trust Him in the area of healing people from Human Immunodefieciency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). I believe that God has revealed to me the means by which to rid the human body of HIV and in its more advance state AIDS. I believe that God has revealed this healing to demonstrate His continued love and mercy for those that believe on Him, and to demonstrate His existence to them that don't know Him as God.

[0002] No money from this invention shall be used on a personal basis by me or any man. The resources from this invention shall be placed into an established foundation created to retrieve lost souls into the Kingdom of God. While you may consider this unbelievable and absurd, this is okay. In God's Word it states: "Beloved believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world [I John 4:1]."

[0003] Following the exact directions explained in this patent will without neither flaw nor negative side effects allow individuals to be ridden of HIV in their blood stream and further prevent the progression of AIDS within the human body. The God I serve is not a half God. He created the world and has the ability to do all things completely and perfectly. There is no hit or miss with God. Either He revealed this healing to me or I missed Him. I believe God's word "For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him [God] shall not be ashamed [Romans 10:11]."
...
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0005] Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) can now be ridden from the human body by use of the Mercy Healing From God: Viral Detergent.

It's easy to see how someone might come across this bizarre document and might mistakenly think it was an authentic patent, issued under the seal of Uncle Sam himself. But it is nothing of the sort.

Now occasionally you'll get someone who will sound almost rational, and his drawings may look legitimate, but he'll be just as deluded, like this fellow. He thinks he's actually got an over unity machine, but he sees no need to feed any excess energy back into it. Given the nature of his gravity-driven ball-and-wheel assembly, such a feedback would probably be counter-productive, what with torques causing centripetal acceleration that would impede the moving parts needed to operate via the gravitational drive. Better to simply take the extra energy and store it or use it. This device could not possibly be a WMD.

Of course, this device can't possibly be a thermodynamic golden goose, either.

 

[Horatius]

... The entire universe would be destroyed!

I wonder if such a device would be granted a US patent.. it would be a great joke on them if they let it slip through. Think of it: patent #XXXX - Universe Destroyer.

Well, I've done some searching on variations of "destroy the universe", and I can't find anything. So you wouldn't have too much prior art to overcome.

Find a PM device patent to use, and then claim "universe destroying" as a "new use for a known product", and you just might get it!



(just don't let NobbyNobbs or Buckaroo know....It'll be our little secret! TeeHee!)