[ WP ] The date is July 13 , 1836 . You 're the clerk at the front desk of the U.S. Patent Office on opening day . Things are going just fine until a number of strangely-dressed people get into an argument about their placement in line . Coincidentally , they 're all trying to patent methods of time travel .

It was a long day at the office. Abe was tired of the long lines of inventors with applications for new patents, all to be filed and sealed for approval at a later date. The droll of this daily life was only rarely broken up by the occasional invention that really interested Abe. On this particular day though, while Abe was going finishing the paperwork on a patent for a curious man named John Ruggles, who had the absurd idea to put tires on locomotives, a loud argument broke out between three oddly dressed men near the middle of the line. It seemed to be the case that all three had the same invention and were rushing to patent it first. 
 
 Abe was intrigued. He quickly went over to the three men to stop a fight from occurring and to find out what kind of invention could cause three men to argue so vehemently. When Abe finally calmed the men down and asked them what the matter was, one man stepped forward and began to explain, 
 
 `` I invented a time traveling machine that can take the user forward to see the future. It really is amazing, and I need to patent it in order to make my design profitable.'' At this the other two men began to tell the first that they had invented it first, but Abe just held up his hand to stop them. 
 
 Abe was deeply annoyed and thought to himself, `` Perhaps today will be just another day after all. How dull.'' He walked over to his desk, pulled out a worn notebook, and came back to the three and began to read, `` Prior Art Related to Time Travel: Mahabharata, Talmud, De Nugis Curialium, Anno 7603, and according to another oddly dressed chap who came in last week, some man named Wells will publish a book called The Time Machine in sixty years. I'm sorry, but your idea has been done. Maybe next time you'll try to patent something that is an actually novel idea.
