Can I patent a time machine?

Question

Can I make a request of patent for a time machine that has as principle the use of the gravity?

Answer 1

If you look at the Image File Wrapper for application US 2006/0073976 A1, and specifically at the Final Rejection (August 8, 2007) from the Examiner, you will see why it is difficult to obtain such patents:

2. Claims 1 and 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the disclosed invention is inoperative and therefore lacks utility.

The specification discloses a large amount of theoretical physics that is unsubstantiated and not generally recognized by the scientific community. Examples include the particular nature, creation, and control of gravitons, the physical reality of de-Sitter space, and the ability to obtain and control rotating singularities. Therefore, there is no evidence before the Office that the current invention is operative under accepted scientific knowledge. Inventions that utilize previously unknown or evolving scientific principles require some degree of evidence that they are operative and, thus, have utility.

3. The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112:

The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.

5. Claims 1 and 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter that was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention. Even if the claimed invention is theoretically possible, it would take undue experimentation for one of ordinary skill to produce the claimed steps of obtaining and controlling rotating singularities, gravitons or the other claimed elements of the invention.

And finally:

7. Claims 1 and 2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.

For example, it is not clear what limitations are involved in the steps of "maintaining one of the singularities", "a differential electron flow", "to take advantage of the LenseThirring effect", "timelike curves", "under the ... Alcubierre geometry", and "in accordance with Geroch's theorem". Also, in claim 2, line 13, "the other" has no antecedent basis in the claims and it is not clear what "other" spacelike boundary is being referenced.

Answer 2

Patents are, by law, protections on actual implementations.

You can't patent a theory or idea, and you have to know that your implementation will work.

If you can fulfil that requirement, you should be able to get a patent. But speaking to this particular example, unless you've built a functioning time machine, you probably won't be able to get one.

Just for good measure, there is also a constraint that patents must, through the same token as that their inventions must work, not exist for "impossible" inventions. For instance, you can't patent a perpetual motion machine. I'm not saying that this is impossible, especially dependent on your definition of a time machine, but that's something important to keep in mind.