Forum: Author Hangout

Reading your comment made me remember the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) when Montgomery Scott gave out the formula to helps Dr. Nichols "invent" transparent aluminium and when Bones mentions that giving out the formula might change history Scotty comes back with "why, how do we know he didn't invent the thing"

Short clip of the scene :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UktyaFt477A

Fun Fact :

The movie was from 1986 and transparent aluminium was invented real life 23 years later in 2009. In part, it was developed by Professor Justin Wark of Oxford University's Department of Physics.

Fun Fact :

The movie was from 1986 and transparent aluminium was invented real life 23 years later in 2009. In part, it was developed by Professor Justin Wark of Oxford University's Department of Physics

.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US4241000

I suggest you look at your source a bit closer.

Aluminium oxynitride (transparent aluminium) Patent, was first applied for in 1978 in secret. It was 2009 before it was declassified.

To this date, the patent is still assigned to the US Army.

That movie stirred a lot of shit, and a witch hunt for whomever leaked it.

Edited to add: After looking through that link, I see where prior was noticed as early as 1967.
Either way, your source is seriously mistaken.

Bob Dorian was the Host on AMC ("American Movie Classics" a TV station) and he would give out trivia and insight about the movies being aired when going to commercial breaks.

why he had them with him they didn't say

1. He had them in the previous movie when they stole the enterprise to go rescue Spock from Genesis in The Search For Spock.
2. He needed them for reading. IIRC: he pulled them out and put them on a couple of times to read control panels on the Enterprise bridge.

Most patents only last a few years. You're basically controlling the method of manufacture, not the item itself.

This is why Lego constantly puts out new sets. The basic Lego pieces have been out of their control for decades and there are lots of knock-offs. When Lego brand creates a new piece design they control that brick for about 7 years, so they put out as many sets as they can using that piece.

Famously, Arthur C. Clarke proposed a design for a geostationary communications satellite in 1945 but his patent request was turned down for the simple reason that the technology to do it didn't exist yet. You can't patent an idea.

So to your suggestions, unless your past self already had a large manufacturing operation and the technical know-how to exploit a future patent, all an early patent would do is prevent the original creator from capitalizing on the invention.

Famously, Arthur C. Clarke proposed a design for a geostationary communications satellite in 1945 but his patent request was turned down for the simple reason that the technology to do it didn't exist yet. You can't patent an idea.

True, but publishing the idea will prevent a patent when the technology is finally available. It doesn't help to argue the idea originally proposed was flawed and wouldn't have worked.
Exactly this happened to a Danish maritime salvage company, who tried to patent their method to lift sunken ships to the surface. They used polystyrene bubbles to fill the ship. However in a old Disney story Donald Duck's three nephews used ping-pong balls to lift a sunken boat. Result: idea already published, no patent!

HM.

You can't patent an idea.

That used to be the case, before Congress created the Federal Circuit and gave them exclusive appellate jurisdiction over patent cases.

The Federal Circuit believes that maximizing patentability is it's mission.

They have allowed business method patents wholly disconnected from any kind of physical device. What is a business method other than an idea?

A similar argument could be made about software patents.

Worse, patents are supposed to be novel, but the Federal Circuit has allowed patents that are in the line of some process that has existed for hundreds or thousands of years on a general purpose computer (or on the internet).

The past will be changed if the traveller takes even one unit of currency not theirs. That unit of currency would have went to someone from that time.

1. Invent time machine
2. Find a gold/jewelry heist from 50 years ago that is still unsolved in your time.
3. Go back in time and commit the heist.

History remains unchanged (how do you know you weren't always the one to steal it?).

1. Invent time machine
2. Find a gold/jewelry heist from 50 years ago that is still unsolved in your time.
3. Go back in time and commit the heist.

History remains unchanged (how do you know you weren't always the one to steal it?).

There is no need for all that.
There has been multiple reports of various old treasures found in the past forty years. The MC only needs to get to one of them first.

There has been multiple reports of various old treasures found in the past forty years. The MC only needs to get to one of them first.

The object was to do it without changing history.

Who found the various old treasures is generally known along with when they were found.

If someone else finds it first at an earlier date, that changes history.

Some of those treasures reached into the tens of millions of dollars in worth. Taking a million worth off the top would change nothing.

History remains unchanged (how do you know you weren't always the one to steal it?).

I briefly mention this in one of my stories, Borrowed Time.

It had been a thrilling accomplishment, but ultimately, the nature of time travel hadn't really lent itself to any sort of fun. Baby Hitlers turned out to be remarkably well protected by causality, and even if the doctor inserted himself into any of the great mysteries or heists of the past, proving it would require a degree of tackiness that was against his nature.

finding a safe place to hide something for decades.

That's actually the key point. There are plenty of ways to increase value over time, several are suggested. An option might be a bank deposit box with numbers/passwords, not keys. I don't know if they were available at the time. If that's not an option than burying either keys or the loot somewhere is left. It shouldn't be too difficult to find a place that is undisturbed over the period, the difficult part is to pin-point the same place between the two times. Either unobtrusive markers or plain memory should solve that.
What is just suggested once I think, is you also have to be able to explain where your result value is coming from. That might limit the types of gaining value that are mentioned. Bitcoin seems usable but not if you want to have access to all of it in normal currency. You can't just sell a billion worth of bitcoins for dollars.

It's probably true for safe deposit boxes too.

Prepay for 50 years? If that's possible they can't close it before payment runs out.

For your purposes you could buy up land that was rural or undeveloped 50 years ago and is important now.

But don't do this with gold fields. Sutter's claim of ownership was ignored.

HM.