Has someone patented the warp drive?

US Patent No. 6,960,975 (issued 11/1/2005): "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state"

A space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state is provided comprising a hollow superconductive shield, an inner shield, a power source, a support structure, upper and lower means for generating an electromagnetic field, and a flux modulation controller. A cooled hollow superconductive shield is energized by an electromagnetic field resulting in the quantized vortices of lattice ions projecting a gravitomagnetic field that forms a spacetime curvature anomaly outside the space vehicle. The spacetime curvature imbalance, the spacetime curvature being the same as gravity, provides for the space vehicle's propulsion. The space vehicle, surrounded by the spacetime anomaly, may move at a speed approaching the light-speed characteristic for the modified locale.

In particular there is the very interesting claim that,

...the highest pressure of inflationary vacuum state is pushing said space vehicle forward in modified spacetime at a speed possibly approaching a local light-speed, the local light-speed which may be substantially higher than the light-speed in the ambient space.

(Via rdv live from Tokyo and Forward Biased.)