Pseudoscience and bad medicine

Question

So, one can patent snake-oil treatments now?

"Neurocutaneous syndrome" as Amin uses the term is not recognized as a real condition by any medical or scientific authority. He is the only person on earth who believes the symptoms of Delusional Infestations [well recognized as a symptom of various organic conditions as well as of certain drug abuses] are caused by dental compounds, a hypothesis refuted by all dental, toxicological, dermatological, psychiatric, and other authorities. He continues to promote this non-existent condition in non-peer-reviewed journals that publish anything for a price, and does his clients a huge disservice by treating their real and curable conditions with his mangosteen-based placebos. It is a shame he is allowed to profit from the misery of his patients in this way, and that the US patent office can be complicit in his crimes by giving him a patent for a fake treatment for a fake disease.

In reference to the patent: US 2013/0202570 A1

Answer 1

Don't worry, the USPTO Examiner's weren't born yesterday. You'll find these types of patent applications in the historical patent literature as well, and the modern examination rules account for this.

This patent application received a Final Rejection on March 27, 2015 and was listed as Abandoned on October 10, 2015 (refer to USPTO Public Pair, search on Publication No. "US 20130202570 A1").

10-20-2015  ABN   Abandonment
03-27-2015  CTFR  Final Rejection

You will likely find some interesting reading material in the 315 pages of back-and-forth communication between the inventor and examiner. This is available in the Public Pair Image File Wrapper.

The examiners must review each patent according to the MPEP rules, and as such their arguments must take a particular form. In this case, the examiner settled on an argument of Indefinite Subject Matter:

All of the claims rejected under this statute either expressly recite indefinite matter or are dependent upon a claim which recites indefinite matter. If a claim depends upon a claim which recites indefinite matter and if the claim does not rectify the indefiniteness, the claim is also rejected for being indefinite because the dependent claim necessarily possesses all of the limitations of the claim from which it depends, including the indefinite limitations.