STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.
Does a picture circulating on social media prove that Pfizer has a patent "for tracking vaccinated humans worldwide via microwave and graphene"? No, that's not true: The pictured document is not a Pfizer patent and it does not mention graphene or microwaves. Pfizer's office of media relations confirmed to Lead Stories that Pfizer has nothing to do with the patent, which mentions Pfizer once, in a list of 28 vaccine developers.
The claim originated from an article (archived here) published on the website called Philosophers-Stone.info on October 14, 2021. It resurfaced on Instagram in mid-February 2023 (for example, here and here.) The title of the article said:
Pfizer patent approved for tracking vaccinated humans worldwide via microwave and graphene held in fatty tissues of the vaccinated
The story continued:
... all vaccinated humans worldwide who will be or are now connected to the 'internet of things' by a quantum link of pulsating microwave frequencies of 2.4 gHz or higher from cell towers and satellites directly to the graphene oxide held in the fatty tissues of all persons who've had the death-shot
Here is what the article looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Philosophers Stone screenshot taken on Wed Feb 15 21:56:16 2023 UTC)
The same patent can be found on the website of the United State Patent and Trademark Office. While Pfizer's name appears on page 30 in a list of vaccine developers, that does not make this a Pfizer patent.
Instead, the patent discusses the methodology of identifying people in high-risk social settings where infections spread faster. The document proposes to do that through the information gathered from people's smartphones.
The Ehrlich Group, the Israeli firm whose name appears on the patent, co-authored a paper explaining how that technology could be used to prioritize the allocation of COVID-19 vaccines.
Pfizer's media relations department told Lead Stories via email on February 15, 2023:
Pfizer is not involved in this patent.
As the Ehrlich Group website specifies, a patent attorney's office is one of the three main divisions of its business. By mid-March 2020, when the first lockdowns were just put in place in the U.S. and scientists around the globe were only beginning to get a full picture of what the novel coronavirus was, the Ehrlich Group had already applied for approximately 30 patents for COVID-related inventions.
Lead Stories reached out to the Ehrlich Group. When we receive a response, this story will be updated as appropriate.
At the time of writing, the front page of the Philosophers-Stone.info website contained a disclaimer (saved here):
Philosophers-Stone.info/ Phil Stone (Pureblood) is proudly banned from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Rumor Mill News, YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo and others.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about COVID can be found here.
Updates:
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2023-03-09T21:41:32Z 2023-03-09T21:41:32Z CORRECTION: The original version of this debunk incorrectly declared Pfizer's name appeared nowhere in the document. A Lead Stories editor subsequently found the Ctrl/F search function did not function correctly in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's copy of the patent. "Pfizer" does appear on page 30 in a list of vaccine developers included as background information for the patent application.
