Hacker News Reader

>> the present invention does not conform to known scientific principles

Nutjob aside, does that mean you can't patent an invention if you don't fully understand why it works?

I wouldn't be surprised if there were patents granted for things physically impossible. And on the other hand I would bet there were inventions in the course of history that defied the then-current known science.

View on HN

You can patent things even if you don't know exactly why it works. However a patent has to enable others to create the thing that is patentend.

That is to say, somebody who is up to date in the field should be able to create the invention using the knowledge from the field plus the details in the patent.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufficiency_of_disclosure

Reply on news.ycombinator.com