Of these four criteria for patentability, it is my understanding that the usefulness or utility criteria is generally the easiest to meet while novelty and non-obviousness are much harder. In other words, when patent applications are rejected, it is much more likely that it is because the invention failed to meet the novelty and non-obviousness criteria, rather than that it failed to demonstrate usefulness. That said, there are times when utility is not met:

where the logic underlying the assertion is seriously flawed (for example, a perpetual motion machine) could a patent be challenged on utility. In addition, illegal or highly dangerous products may also be rejected by the U.S. Patent Office under this requirement.

It was the utility requirement and the few, rare occasions when it is not met that came to mind when I read a story a few days ago about the efforts of Japan's largest telephone company, NTT, to develop and commercialize a technology known as "galvanic vestibular stimulation" (GVS), the application of electricity to the delicate nerves of the inner ear that help maintain balance.

And why, you might be asking yourself, does NTT care about applying electricity to these nerves? To what use, you may be wondering, would this technology be applied? According to the article's author:

"NTT says the feature may be used in video games and amusement park rides, although there are no plans so far for a commercial product."

The key words in that sentence, I think, are "commercial product." First of all, firms don't promote technologies to the public via sites like CNN if they have no idea of what to do with them. What that phrase means then is that they anticipate that the technology will be a component in some other technology or commercial product. The rest of the article makes clear that they they do, in fact, have plans, big plans, for GVS:

I watched a simple racing-car game demonstration on a large screen while wearing a device programmed to synchronize the curves with galvanic vestibular stimulation. It accentuated the swaying as an imaginary racing car zipped through a virtual course, making me wobbly.

Another program had the electric current timed to music. My head was pulsating against my will, getting jerked around on my neck. I became so dizzy I could barely stand. I had to turn it off.

NTT researchers suggested this may be a reflection of my lack of musical abilities. People in tune with freely expressing themselves love the sensation, they said.

"We call this a virtual dance experience although some people have mentioned it's more like a virtual drug experience," said Taro Maeda, senior research scientist at NTT. "I'm really hopeful Apple Computer will be interested in this technology to offer it in their iPod."

I like it when manager's think big, but I wouldn't stake my hopes on this application if I were Mr. Maeda. The other uses mentioned by scientific researchers interviewed for the article are more promising, I think, but also much less glamorous:

James Collins, professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, has studied using the technology to prevent the elderly from falling and to help people with an impaired sense of balance.

Timothy Hullar, assistant professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., believes finding the right way to deliver an electromagnetic field to the ear at a distance could turn the technology into a weapon for situations where "killing isn't the best solution."

How interesting then that the same technology could be used in iPods, could be used to project non-lethal force, and could be used to help the elderly keep their balance and, by extension ensure that no one will ever again have to suffer through those dreadful "I've fallen and I can't get up" commericals by Life-Call. All of these things applications, I think, would be able to meet the USPTO's utility criteria and could earn NTT an healthy ROI on its R&D for this technology.

I do, however, see problems with any attempt to commercialize this technology on its own and that problem relates to the very scary and potentially dangerous uses to which GVS could be put. Just take a look at these descriptions by the article's author of what he experienced when the technology was tried out on him:

A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center. It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head -- either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.

I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off.

I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced -- mistakenly -- that this was the only way to maintain my balance.

The phenomenon is painless but dramatic. Your feet start to move before you know it. I could even remote-control myself by taking the switch into my own hands.

There's no proven-beyond-a-doubt explanation yet as to why people start veering when electricity hits their ear. But NTT researchers say they were able to make a person walk along a route in the shape of a giant pretzel using this technique.

NTT researchers... maintain that the point is not to control people against their will. If you're determined to fight the suggestive orders from the electric currents by clinging to a fence or just lying on your back, you simply won't move. But from my experience, if the currents persist, you'd probably be persuaded to follow their orders. And I didn't like that sensation. At all.

Of course he didn't like the sensation. It is the real-life equivalent of what the fans of Harry Potter fans know as the Imperious Curse- the placing of one person completely under the control of another; one of the three Unforgivable Curses. As I said at the outset of this post, I have very little expertise in the fine points of patent prosecution. But having said that, even if a patent could be secured on this technique or its embodiment, I see no way that applications of GVS like the one just described could ever be made widely available- unless, of course, you disguised it as, say, a system for controlling the movements of a robot.
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Further Reading
http://www.gahtan.com/techlawblog