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The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

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Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#31

Post by ALittleLight »

ggm wrote: post #8

The problem I have in this, is that history is littered with things which without hindsight were crazy-batshit-ideas, and in a world of IPR and patents, definitely do get flagged as wierd. But.. then turn out to be useful. Liquid metal refrigerators using electromagnetics to send the fluid around instead of just pumping ammonia? Thats .. crazy. But also, What Szilard and Einstein patented: safer by far, no moving par…

I would have no problem listening to this guy and trusting him and believing in his view of physics if he would just show some of his stuff. If he really has a compact functional fusion generator and a gravity wave device and other things, then he certainly deserves to be taken seriously. Give us a quick demonstration of the technology and then say all you can, please!

Conversely, if all he has are ideas I can't understand without any demos or examples, I have no problem doubting him. Perhaps he's right, but I won't be able to tell until I see the gizmos working. Because of that, I have no hesitation in defaulting to the view that he isn't credible, reliable, or right.

Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#32

Post by Iv »

kipchak wrote: post #30
jbay808 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. The point of patents is public disclosure -- if you want to keep something secret, you don't patent it. A patent isn't going to prevent a foreign government from copying a technology in their own country. It instead helps them, because a patent is supposed to document the technology in sufficient detail to replicate it. It would just prevent them from competing to sell them in the US.

A few potential explinations are deliberate misdirection intended for actual programs or towards foreign intelligence services, a filing or paperwork mistake, testing the waters for Mass disclosure, or infighting between the Navy releasing information and the Air Force or some other branch that owns the craft and has tested it on Navy latest and greatest assets.

My cynical experience at going through many pseudo science article makes me more inclined to believe that someone is just using Navy's name to fuel a scam.

Maybe someone clueless at the Navy was a tool, or maybe they just got into the zeitgeist that using official positions to pull a scam is the trendy thing to do.

Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#33

Post by ganzuul »

catalogia wrote: post #26
cbanek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only can you, but many people have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Patents

From that what that link says, it sounds like you could but now cannot patent perpetual motion devices, since those applications are now rejected in America and UK. Perhaps you can patent them elsewhere though.

IIRC they are not rejected but you have to demonstrate the invention with a physical implementation. Of course this proves nothing but it does reduce the amount of paperwork.

There is legitimate research going on into reversing the casimir effect but the narrative they present is one of tribology rather than power generation.

Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#34

Post by Iv »

bra4you wrote: post #20
smhinsey wrote: post #13

I would love to be wrong because this tech is very interesting, but I feel like I have developed a pretty good bullshit detector in my time online and quotes such as "VES being the Fifth State of Matter (Fifth Essence - Quintessence)" stick out to me as being discrediting.

Honestly, I have lost track of state of matters. How many are there? 3? s,l,g? Plasma? Bode Einstein Condensate? I vaguely remember at least three more.

Apparently in physics, there is less talk about states than about phases [1]. There are four fundamental states basically all matter can be in: solid, liquid, gas, plasma, but then you can get philosophical about what constitutes a state. Is a superfluid a liquid? I think there is a stronger case for Bose-Einstein condensate to be a separate state but one could argue otherwise. Crystalline vs amorphous solids could easily be argued as being different states etc...

Really, phases are more clearly defined, but more numerous, and change from one material to another.

And then you are left with the task of defining colloids, gels, aerosols...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_(matter)

Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#35

Post by bra4you »

bra4you wrote: post #21
cbanek wrote: post #15

I'd really love some world changing breakthrough technology now. I really would. But I don't really understand this stuff (not that I'm qualified). I guess you can actually patent a perpetual motion machine, so the fact that it is a patent, doesn't seem to require that it be real. I can't help but think back to the 80's SDI "Star Wars" programs. We said that we could do a lot of things that we couldn't, and that made…

"I guess you can actually patent a perpetual motion machine" No, you can't because it violates fundamental principles of scientific laws.

Downvote -4?

The voting system here lets me question the sanity and competence of many readers here.

For those interested:

----------------

Proposals for such inoperable machines have become so common that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has made an official policy of refusing to grant patents for perpetual motion machines without a working model. The USPTO Manual of Patent Examining Practice states:

    With the exception of cases involving perpetual motion, a model is not ordinarily required by the Office to demonstrate the operability of a device. If operability of a device is questioned, the applicant must establish it to the satisfaction of the examiner, but he or she may choose his or her own way of so doing.[25]
And, further, that:

    A rejection [of a patent application] on the ground of lack of utility includes the more specific grounds of inoperativeness, involving perpetual motion. A rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 for lack of utility should not be based on grounds that the invention is frivolous, fraudulent or against public policy.[26]
The filing of a patent application is a clerical task, and the USPTO will not refuse filings for perpetual motion machines; the application will be filed and then most probably rejected by the patent examiner, after he has done a formal examination.[27] Even if a patent is granted, it does not mean that the invention actually works, it just means that the examiner believes that it works, or was unable to figure out why it would not work.[27]

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Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#36

Post by bra4you »

catalogia wrote: post #26
cbanek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only can you, but many people have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Patents

From that what that link says, it sounds like you could but now cannot patent perpetual motion devices, since those applications are now rejected in America and UK. Perhaps you can patent them elsewhere though.

" it sounds like you could but now cannot patent "

I am afraid such small distinctions are beyond the mental capabilities of most HN readers. I have more and more the impression of dealing with 16 y olds on HN

Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#37

Post by daveslash »

jbay808 wrote: post #28
cmroanirgo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that these devices are real: > Despite the patents sounding extremely far-fetched, official documents show that the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Naval Aviation Enterprise personally attested to the reality of these inventions and their importance to national security and peer-state competition in appeals with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Of course, the article immediately fo…

I don't get it. The point of patents is public disclosure -- if you want to keep something secret, you don't patent it. A patent isn't going to prevent a foreign government from copying a technology in their own country. It instead helps them, because a patent is supposed to document the technology in sufficient detail to replicate it. It would just prevent them from competing to sell them in the US.

>> A patent isn't going to prevent a foreign government from copying a technology in their own country

Absolutely agree. But that's probably a moot point if the secret in question has already gotten out and you're/we're aware of it ("gotten out", at least from an intelligence standpoint). If that's the case, maybe they're just trying to protect the rights to said technology within the U.S. -- if they know the secret has gotten out to a foreign state, it would be problematic to have said foreign state patent said secret here, thereby preventing U.S. companies from making it? Just guessing...

Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#38

Post by nl »

ggm wrote: post #8

The problem I have in this, is that history is littered with things which without hindsight were crazy-batshit-ideas, and in a world of IPR and patents, definitely do get flagged as wierd. But.. then turn out to be useful. Liquid metal refrigerators using electromagnetics to send the fluid around instead of just pumping ammonia? Thats .. crazy. But also, What Szilard and Einstein patented: safer by far, no moving par…

None of these ideas seemed particularly crazy even at the time.

Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#39

Post by killjoywashere »

ggm wrote: post #8

The problem I have in this, is that history is littered with things which without hindsight were crazy-batshit-ideas, and in a world of IPR and patents, definitely do get flagged as wierd. But.. then turn out to be useful. Liquid metal refrigerators using electromagnetics to send the fluid around instead of just pumping ammonia? Thats .. crazy. But also, What Szilard and Einstein patented: safer by far, no moving par…

So, there's this story that goes around at Office of Naval Research about Enrico Fermi walking in one day and saying he had a new method of powering ships. In retrospect we all realize nuclear power is in fact a great way to power submarines, but they shoo'd him out the door and regretted living to tell the tale. So there's the profound cultural mythos in the Navy around missing out on the next energy solution which probably makes them particularly vulnerable to this line of quackpottery.

https://youtu.be/cNgAMjOVB4Y?t=1221

Re: The Inventor of the Navy's 'UFO Patents'

#40

Post by IshKebab »

ggm wrote: post #8

The problem I have in this, is that history is littered with things which without hindsight were crazy-batshit-ideas, and in a world of IPR and patents, definitely do get flagged as wierd. But.. then turn out to be useful. Liquid metal refrigerators using electromagnetics to send the fluid around instead of just pumping ammonia? Thats .. crazy. But also, What Szilard and Einstein patented: safer by far, no moving par…

You're massively overestimating the number of inventions that were sudden crazy-sounding discoveries. Almost none are like that.
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