[mrpdaemon]

If you had a functioning time machine you could travel back in time and file the patent before any prior art was created.

[btilly]

Not necessarily.

I have, in fact, seen a potential design for a time machine which violates no known laws of physics and could take you back in time only as far as the point where the machine itself was built. This would prevent the "patent filing leapfrog" that you are talking about.

Before anyone wonders why this machine has not been built, it requires a rapidly rotating rod, several light years long, about the diameter of the Sun. To travel in time you need to orbit the rod at extremely high speed, and your direction relative to the spin of the rod determines which direction you travel through time.

In theory it should work. But reducing theory to practice is somewhat beyond our current means. :-)

[maskedinvader]

I am not an expert but I believe this is BS, would you care to cite any references or paper that talks about this so called potential design ?

[Selfcommit]

This is probably the most interesting comment I've read on this entire article.

[dragonwriter]

Yeah, but so would any infringer, thus making the infringement prior art for the invention.