Remember the McFly 2015s, the Official Shoes of Gadget Lab? They were a fairly faithful rendition of Marty McFly's amazing self-lacing sneakers from Back to the Future 2, forced to the market by the tireless work of the Maloof brothers who spent years badgering Nike into making them.

They looked great, but lacked the flashing lights and auto-lacing functions of the "real" thing. Now, Nike has actually patented a self-lacing sneaker. This, you are no doubt just realizing, is completely frickin' amazing: It's entirely possibly that these shoes could actually be in stores in the year 2015, just like in the movie. This would be a weird, time-warping paradox so perfectly mimicking those in the Back to the Future movies that the world might possibly end.

That Nike has filed a patent for these things is mind-bending enough, but pretty much everything has made it in. The shoes will of course fasten themselves, but there are also LEDs a-glowing and a detailed breakdown of the batteries, circuits and control-systems. There is even a charging stand.

One problem Nike might have to face, though, is the existence of prior-art. Not only did the sneakers already show up in the movie, but just last month we saw that an enterprising hacker had made his own self-lacing shoes.

McFly 2015 patent application [WIPO via Nice KicksThakns, Matt!]

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