Most people familiar with the US patent office will agree that it's totally broken. The reviewers are not scientists, and aren't required to understand what's being proposed in a patent. They simply perform a search for prior art.
As a result, all kinds of pseudoscience has gotten "patented", for example this patent for detecting "tachyonized" materials (you know, materials that have been infused with tachyons, the hypothetical particles that travel faster than light):