So, let's pretend that Bob the developer has some magic piece of software that does something that nobody else has figured out how to do yet (my verbiage may be incorrect, let's assume that this meets the criteria for a patentable work).<p>Bob hasn't released this software to the world yet, because he's working on other parts of a larger system.<p>In this scenario, should Bob consider filing a patent in order to protect his invention (assuming it would get discovered eventually), or is there some way for him to file a record of what his method does so that he doesn't have to worry about someone coming to patent what he's doing out from under him?<p>(I'm not at all versed in patent law, so I apologize if the answers to this are obvious)