They say they have a patent pending for that... wonder if it's true.
What are the patent regulations, does the patented invention actually
have to work, or can any crazy thing be patented?

In theory, a patented invention must be "useful", "novel", and
"non-obvious". Most would say that "useful" requires that it actually
work, at least to some extent. It used to be the case, long ago, that
you had to actually build at least a working model and be able to
demonstrate that the device worked.

However, in practice, the rules have changed. Many patent claims are
allowed based solely on a description (which must, again in principle,
be sufficiently detailed to allow someone skilled in the art to
reproduce the invention as described) and no working model is ever
presented. It's also clear that many patent examiners are content to
accept the filer's explanation about how and why the invention works,
and that they're sometimes woefully ignorant of the actual state of
the art and of the existence of relevant prior art.

On the other hand, "patent pending" simply means that they've filed.
It doesn't mean that the patent has been issued, or has even been
allowed and is on the way to being issued. It's entirely possible
that most or all of their claims have been, or will be laughed out of
court by the patent examiner.

Even if they do have a valid patent claim in the works, there's
nothing definite to say that their flowery public description about
how their product is supposed to work, corresponds at all closely to
the wording in the patent claims. They might have filed a patent
claim for some narrowly-worded aspect of the design of this specific
product (e.g. a specific size and shape of the ripples), without
trying to claim wider coverage via a "utility" patent and its
description and claims.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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