IBM Files for Bullet Dodging Bionic Body Armor Patent

1. Justin Lynes
   February 13th, 2009 at 6:03 pm

   If only they could make it in tuxedo form and Jackie Chan could have hilarious mayhem in it.

2. g.park
   February 13th, 2009 at 6:26 pm

   30 years ago, an International Business Machine was a typewriter. Now it's a weapon

3. Snake Oil Baron
   February 13th, 2009 at 7:19 pm

   An interesting concept but I will be very skeptical until it is proven. Being able to predict human response to shock sounds very difficult and you don't want to flip someone onto the ground while they are being shot at.

4. apocalogy
   February 13th, 2009 at 7:22 pm

   Apparently Bush doesn't need one because he dodges projectiles pretty effectively.

5. Justin
   February 13th, 2009 at 7:43 pm

   This would be pretty sweet if they can get this thing to work right.

6. Oliver
   February 13th, 2009 at 9:25 pm

   @q_park

   40 years before International Business Machine was a typewriter, it was a punch card driven database system to help the Nazis find and track Jews.

7. angstrom
   February 13th, 2009 at 9:42 pm

   If my suit 'moved me' at the speed of a bullet I'm pretty sure I would make a loud snapping noise as all my bones broke in unison.

   Moving me about at around 1000 meters per second?
   I'm probably better off taking the bullet!

8. JJ
   February 13th, 2009 at 10:50 pm

   Angstrom has the best comment so far, and it was the first thing that i thought of....the second thing was; This body armor assumes that the shooter is a good shot. What if he/she was a liitle off, or fired more than one shot...maybe the intended victim would jerk right into the path of the bullet.

   Duh...

9. Alex
   February 14th, 2009 at 3:04 am

   Hahahaha Justin Lynes!

10. AMercer
    February 14th, 2009 at 9:01 am

    They should require the inventor to demonstrate it with live ammo. What? Can't do it? That is because this is vaporware. A dream. IBM is putting that patent out there so they have something to sue with if someone comes out with any kind of technology that even comes close to this.

    They need to revamp the law so that a person cannot get a patent with just an idea on paper. They need to build and demonstrate the actual working invention. Then they can get a patent.

11. Thebes
    February 14th, 2009 at 1:34 pm

    The average distance for a criminal shooting is something like 7 yards. Say 20 feet, with the bullet moving at least 800 feet per second means that suit would need to move me out of the way in 25 milliseconds. That level of acceleration would cause lethal trauma.

    So, suppose its just to protect against the extremely rare long range sniper... lets say that most of those kind of threats happen from 100 yards (far longer than the average criminal rifle shot I am sure)... even then with a rifle round moving 3000 feet per second the magical suit would still need to move me out of the way in about 0.1 seconds... seem very likely to anyone?

    Perhaps this is some bizarre form of guerrilla marketing for IBM, but its not a useful device.

12. clinton labombard
    February 14th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    I agree with AMercer, the patent laws are crap. Not to mention the obvious flaw with wet tissue versus acceleration.

13. Sean McKenna
    February 14th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    I wonder how this "armor" would react to a shotgun blast?

    If it tried to calculate every trajectory for every pellet and activate muscles to twitch you out of the way of each one, you might end up being folded into an origami swan.

14. Byrd Brain
    February 17th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    Looks like people have already touched on my initial thoughts on this. I don't think this is going to go the way the inventors hope it will...

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