John Maloney alerted me to this site as part of a long email list discussion on the issue of patenting methods. I think the practice has been abused where organizations have patented things like knowledge management and training methods that are were developed by many simply because no one had patented them. Then they misuse the patent as a misleading sales tool, and even worse, as a club against competitors with smaller legal budgets. Anyway, here is the site that is both funny and sad that our patent office spends time and honors such things.
As the site says this section is for “Crazy Patents! For the USPTO to issue a patent, the invention must be novel, non-obvious, and "useful." The standard for usefulness is certainly the weakest of the three -- any possible utility, no matter how small, will suffice.”
Here are three examples in their words. There are many more.
Plug for and method of patching a hole in a wall – “Maybe not really crazy, but crazily obvious. This patent shows you how to patch a hole in a wall by cutting out a piece the same size as a pre-formed plug, and then inserting the plug and plastering over it. Isn't that pretty much the way drywall is always patched???”
Method of exercising a cat “In 1993 the USPTO issued this patent for using a laser pointer to exercise a cat (yes, by moving the laser pointer beam around and having the cat chase it). Come on now... Not only is this crazy to patent, but this idea had surely been thought of long before this patent came about. In fact, a bit of research turned up the book "One Hundred and Eighty-Seven Ways to Amuse a Bored Cat" (Ballantine Books; May, 1982) that describes the exact same idea, but using a flashlight. Sorry guys -- the use of a laser pointer for the same thing is obvious.”
User-operated amusement apparatus for kicking the user's buttocks - United States Patent 6293874 – “An amusement apparatus including a user-operated and controlled apparatus for self-infliction of repetitive blows to the user's buttocks by a plurality of elongated arms bearing flexible extensions that rotate under the user's control.”
Hi --
See: http://www.google.com/patents
-j
Posted by: John T. Maloney | December 26, 2006 at 02:17 PM