Intellectual property and patent abstracts

The author explains how examiners at the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) treat applications for inventions that seem to violate accepted scientific principles. In order to be entitled to a patent, an invention must be useful, novel, and non-obvious. In order to obtain a patent, the inventor must submit a specification that describes the invention in sufficient detail such that one of ordinary skill in the art can make and use the invention (without having to engage in undue experimentation). Inventions that indeed violate the laws of physics are not patentable because: (1) they are not useful (i.e., they do not work); and (2) the inventor is unable to properly describe how to make and use a device that violates the laws of physics. However, it is not always so easy to separate those inventions that do indeed violate the laws of physics from those inventions that only appear to violate such laws. Examiners at the PTO use a document called the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) when examining an application for a patent. The author reproduces two of the more pertinent sections of the MPEP that relate to the issue of determining whether an invention is useful.