>A method and system for attenuating a shockwave propagating through a first medium by heating a selected region of the first fluid medium rapidly to create a second, transient medium that intercepts the shockwave and attenuates its energy density before it reaches a protected asset

RPG protection on tanks works on similar principle. Americans have it for decades, Russians for past 15 years.

Interesting (and obvious) that the patent images show a military vehicle; what non-military purposes could this be used for?

There clearly targeting explosions. But, plenty of things generate shockwaves so really expensive active sound dampening or just High frequency vibration dampening.

There are probably far more cost effective approaches, but quieter dental drill for people that just hate the sound. There might be a safety advantage for quieter bone drills etc. Instrument isolation for scientific experiments.

I first thought this was for alleviating shock waves in supersonic flight, but I guess they've been doing these kind of things for a long time

Hardening civilian infrastructure?

Flight MH17 can be an example.

MH17 was downed by the shrapnel from the missile, not the shockwave. The BUK missile's shrapnel number, density and speed was designed to take down, in particular, armored planes like A-10 (into the face, not from behind), so the plasma expansion speed to affect the shrapnel should be on the order of several Mach, something like jet exhaust for example.

Title changed from "Boeing's force field patent".

...which I'd already toned down from CNET's article, "Boeing patents 'Star Wars'-style force fields",

http://www.cnet.com/news/boeing-patents-star-wars-style-forc...

where I first found the patent link, but using the actual patent title as you've done is better still.