I thought there was some sort of requirement about "reduction to practice."

But according to [0], there is also "constructive reduction to practice", which "occurs upon the filing of a patent application on the claimed invention."

That's not the same thing! Someone definitely got the meaning of those words mixed up.

And yes, I would love to see them try.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_to_practice

That would solve a lot of problems. Seems to me it's hard to say you "invented" something if you haven't done it at least once. How do you know your method is practical otherwise?

This patent will absolutely not stop anyone from making a space elevator, given that is going to take more than 20 years from now to build one.

They used to. Patent models were required from 1790 to 1880.

Thomas Jefferson, who was the first Secretary of state (and the first patent executor) as the original congress put the PTO in the department of state was said to have very stringent reduction to practice requirements - and iirc you could count how many parents he signed off on on your fingers and toes.

I think reduction to practice is still on the books but administratively ignored.