[trippypig]

That makes a lot of sense. I can see a case if his/her/their intention was to deceive for whatever reason, like personal gain.

The creative solution to the “double spend” problem is the valuable piece. The other pieces, cryptographic hashing and proof-of-work have been around for some time. Algorithms make up the largest pool of software patents.

If it went private (it's actually patent pending once publically released; even if CC licensed, the license is null re: invalid ownership), an owner could do what MasterCard and Visa do: percentage of transaction, etc. I bet they could even make a case for ownership of his 1+ million coins ($6.4 billion USD).

The technology is already out of the bag, though, it's not going back in.

This article is interesting re: retroactivity: http://www.toikkalawgroup.com/blog/the-patent-bargain-and-th...

[setr]

If I read your link correctly, retroactivity, at least by what your article is addressing, is an ability held by the federal government, and only the government. And moreover, its about updating the rules and validity of the patent.

Im not sure its relevancy to retroactive creation of patents in this context. I agree it was interesting though.