Silly Patents Part 1 | Week 9

Hello everyone!

This week the professor asked us to search silly and crazy patents and analyzing why they are considered silly! I have looked up two patents that are very interesting to me mainly because the concepts seems so simply and obvious. I am even surprised that the Patent office approved these patents. Let me know what you guys think! 

Patent 5443036 | Method of exercising a cat

The first patent I want to focus on is patent 5443036, which was a patent that detailed how to exercise a cat. Essentially this patent was a method for inducing cats to exercise which mainly consisted of directing a beam of light (a laser light) from a held hand device onto the floor and wall. Additionally, the patent detailed moving the laser so to cause an irregular way of fascinating cats and other animals who case on instinct. I believe that this is a silly patent because the idea of this was probably long thought of before making the idea not novel. There was actually a book "One Hundred and Eighty-Seven Ways to Amuse a Bored Cat" that entail the exact same idea but using a flashlight. Although this patent has a slight variation, it is still an obvious switch to using a laser instead of flashlight. Therefore, the patent should have never been issued but it was pointed out that United States Patent and Trademark Office has actually issued the same patent or similar patents multiple times. 

Patent 6368227 | Method of swinging on a swing

The priority date on this patent is November 17th, 2000. Essentially this patent details the way that the user would be positioned on the swing. It says that a user would be positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from horizontal tree branch and has a side to side motion by alternately pulling on one chain and then the other. 

On the technical side of this patent, it says that the method of swinging on a swing is the technical part. However, the concept of a swing has been around for generations. Although this swing is placed on a tree branch, it in no way is novel from a regular swing set or non-obvious in any regard. Therefore, it is just a variation of a past invention, and in my mind should not have been patented. Additionally, it is clear there is prior art for this invention which again, does not make sense as to why it was patented. Another thing to think about is that any person can make a swing on a tree branch- therefore, would the people who patented this invention charge a royalty every time someone made this swing? It is a pretty funny invention since they have had swings around for a good amount of time now. 

Thank you for reading my blog post. I look forward to reading your comments!