Having said all that, I should acknowledge that some patents include statements about theory, in order to broaden the scope of the patent. If the theory holds up, it is very difficult to invent around it. Here is a good example -- the Bell Labs transistor patent of 1950:
https://www.google.com/patents/US2524035 The claims section does not include much about theory, but the discussion does. There is a lot of talk about N-type and P-type carriers. I do not know how well that was established in theory by 1950. Obviously it held up and was soon widely accepted. But look at this sentence, which I think has been carefully crafted to avoid staking the patent on a theory: "Without necessarily subscribing to any particular theory, the following hypothesis is presented to account for the. experimentally determined facts, with all of which it is consistent. It is believed that the preparation of the semi-conductor material and its surface treatment result in the formation of an oxide film, and, below it, of a layer or film 3 of P-type conductivity on the surface of the block, separated from the main body, which is of N-type, by a high resistance barrier 4." - Jed
