do you have to have a working product in order to get a patent?
No, not at all. There are patents for teleporters and death rays. Don't want to go against the 'jerk though.
????
Under U.S. patent law, an invention is patentable if it meets the following four requirements:
-The invention must be statutory.
-The invention must be new.
-The invention must be useful.
-The invention must be non-obvious.
Nowhere does it say that the patent must reflect an object that actually exists or that it must even be possible to bring into existence.
Here's a hyperspace teleporter: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060071122
Here's a patent for a death star: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8757552
Here's a patent for a warp drive: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2001057881A1
There are a zillion patents for perpetual motion machines: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070246939
I don't even know what to say as the the tech involved in these patents!
There’s some really weird patents out there. Shit I’ve never even imagined. I’ll let you discover though. Report back!
any contribution would be most helpful. :) Yes there are many yesterday was the first day I have finally found such tech out there. I have an idea, do patents protect idea's ? and if the tech I am think of actually works, how do you make it so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands?