Alexander Graham Bell vs. Elisha Gray. Bell filed his telephone patent on the morning of February 14, 1876. Gray filed a caveat for nearly the same invention hours later. Bell won. Gray spent the rest of his life arguing he was first.
For Inventors
Patents protect what you file. They don’t protect what someone else files faster.
Seal an invention — $5Alexander Graham Bell vs. Elisha Gray. Bell filed his telephone patent on the morning of February 14, 1876. Gray filed a caveat for nearly the same invention hours later. Bell won. Gray spent the rest of his life arguing he was first.
Nikola Tesla vs. Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi got the radio patent and a Nobel Prize. Tesla’s prior work wasn’t credited until the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in 1943 — months after his death.
Antonio Meucci vs. Bell, again. Meucci built a working telephone in 1860 — 16 years before Bell. He couldn’t afford the $250 patent renewal in 1874. The U.S. House of Representatives finally credited him in 2002.
Rosalind Franklin. Her Photo 51 was shown to Watson without her knowledge. She had imaged the DNA double helix months before Watson and Crick published.
Every one of these disputes would have ended on day one with a Bitcoin-anchored hash.
1. Sign in with your email.
2. Write your invention: the technical detail, the diagram description, the key insight. Pick the Sealed tier ($5).
3. Your browser generates a 256-bit encryption key and encrypts the content. We see only the ciphertext — never the invention itself. Save the .key file we offer.
4. The hash of your invention is anchored to Bitcoin. The ciphertext sits encrypted on The Tower until you choose to unseal it.
5. Years later, if someone files first — or your invention becomes valuable — you reveal. The block height shows when you knew. The plaintext matches the hash. The math is the proof.
A patent is a 20-year monopoly granted by a government. The Tower isn’t that. The Tower is the cryptographic evidence that you knew an idea on a specific date — usable in patent disputes, prior-art arguments, trade-secret cases, and licensing negotiations. Some inventors carve before filing as cheap insurance. Some carve instead of filing when the goal is defensive disclosure rather than monopoly.
$5 per Sealed entry. The key stays with you; the hash lives on Bitcoin.