Patent silliness

Advertisements sometimes refer to “Our patented solution to…” or “Patented protection from…”. The implication is that if something has been patented, it must be good.

As the song from Porgy and Bess puts it (in an admittedly different context), “It ain’t necessarily so.”

But first, a word or two about patents.

A patent is “a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor or applicant for a limited amount of time.” (Typically, 20 years.) Patents both ensure that inventors benefit from their inventions, and that after a time those inventions became freely available to others to make, modify and improve, thus advancing the state of the art.

The Italians were among the first to issue patents: inventors of a silk-weaving process were granted 10-year monopolies in Venice in the 12th Century. In that same city, in 1474, a statute decreed that the Republic had to be told about new and inventive devices, once they were put into practice, if the inventors wanted to have legal redress should someone copy their invention.

Britain has the longest continuous patent tradition: Henry VI granted the first British patent to John of Utynam in 1449. It gave the Flemish-born inventor a 20-year monopoly on a method of making stained glass needed to create the windows of Eton College.

On its website, Ottawa intellectual property law firm Geller, Milton writes that for something to be patentable, it must be new (as determined by reference to all public disclosures of similar items in the past), useful (largely, that means it actually works), and inventive (it isn’t an obvious development to someone knowledgeable in the field).

And that brings us to Patently Silly, a website which pokes fun at real patents recently issued by the U.S. Patent Office. While it’s true you can make anything sound silly if you try hard enough, you really don’t have to try very hard with some of these:

The Deer Stomp Simulator. This is “a device for imitating the sound of a footfall or stomp of an animal.” Stomping lures male deer who are looking for female deer. The hunter, up a tree, pulls on cords to cock spring-loaded “blunts” which can then be released as desired to pound the ground. The patent includes an amusing illustration of a guy about six metres up in a tree pulling on cords like a puppeteer.

Water Skipping Article Incorporating Elliptical Outline and Hollowed Interior Core—in other words, an artificial (and bio-degradable!) skipping rock. Personally I always found half the fun of skipping rocks to be searching for the perfect rock, but if buying “rocks” by the bag is your…um, bag…then this patent may make your heart…well, skip a beat.

House Slippers. These are, of course, slippers in the shape of a house, complete with windows, door, and chimney.

Receptacle Assembly for Receiving Canine Fecal Matter. This pretty much explains itself, although once you’ve seen the picture, I think you’ll agree that the notion that any self-respecting dog would wear such a thing is itself for the dogs.

Throwable Pet Toy. It’s not a Frisbee, but what Patently Silly calls a “Frisbeef,“ a flying disk with a special bone-shaped extrusion on the bottom to make it easier for dogs to pick up, and impregnated with the flavours and odours of substances such as “smoked ham, chicken, beef and other meat by-products.” My favorite part of the patent: “It is to be recognized, however, that flavors or odors such as candy or catnip may be incorporated into the body of”—presumably they meant “for”—“other end users, such as children or cats.” Because we all know how much both children and cats like to catch Frisbees with their teeth.

Attachment for Blade of Hockey Stick. Specifically, this is an attachment that allows you to use a hockey stick to slap-shot yard waste, like “rotten hornet-infested crab apples and dog waste” into the neighbour’s yard—um, sorry, I mean into “a desired spot such as a compost heap.”

And finally, there’s the Immobilization Device: “A method of immobilizing a non-human animal comprising the steps of: (a) inserting a probe having a pair of electrodes into the anal canal of the animal; and (b) applying a pulsed electrical current through the electrodes…” Um…but how do you immobilize the animal so you can insert the immobilizer?

Of course, it’s not like I’ve invented anything recently. So it’s probably not fair of me to make fun of…

What’s this? Apparatus for Harnessing Wind to Drive a Bicycle?

Now that’s just silly!