there are a _ton_ of patents issued to "inventions" that aren't even developed yet. That is in the current climate of not legally needing to reduce an inventio

there are a _ton_ of patents issued to "inventions" that aren't even developed yet. That is in the current climate of not legally needing to reduce an invention to practice. If, instead, patent-seekers were required to actually produce working copies of their inventions (reduce to practice), we might see them regularly do that before the critical dates. I believe that that was how it was traditionally done, until recent times.