A Look at a Few Obscure Patents
Posted by David DiGiammarino on Fri, Jul 09, 2010 @ 08:37
Recently, I was looking at a great museum of obscure patents, compiled by Gene Quinn of IP Watchdog. These patents range from absurd (but believable) to mind-boggling (and unbelievable).
One of the patents that is a bit on the 
absurd side is the "Pest Death Ray" (pictured) that vaporizes insect with a blast of radiation. Yes, radiation. Are pests are ever really that annoying?
Others that are mind-boggling include the "Homeopathic X-ray" where "the patient and health care provider entangle their finger/thumb O-rings and then hover them over the part of the patients body that needs to be imaged." Somehow hovering o-ringed fingers over your body will produce an X-ray, apparentely by electromagnetic fields.
If you're wondering how this patent got issued, you're not alone. Gene Quinn wrote, "this one absolutely must fall into the WHAT WAS THE EXAMINER THINKING category." The interesting part is that the examiner had a good head on his shoulders. It was the system that allowed this patent to be issued. From Gene Quinn:
As it turns out, one of my close personal friends was the supervising examiner in the Art Group that issued this patent. As you can probably imagine I have had many conversations about this particular patent with him. What I picked up on when I first wrote about the patent was one particular part of the invention, but the main part of the invention is a diagnostic tool. The patent examiner, a fellow that I am told was extremely technically sophisticated, did not personally believe that this invention would work. He issued appropriate rejections and then the inventor submitted affidavits of so-called experts to say that it did work.
The patent examiner is legally required to take the word of the inventor when affadavits are filed, so he did what he had to do by law. Unfortunately, that just makes for a poor patent.
A final example from IP Watchdog's museum is one of poor quality: Better Mouse Trap. Yes, for real, a better mousetrap. Gene points out that "a search of the Patent Office online database shows that since 1976 some 44 patents have been granted with the term 'mouse trap' in the title." It's doubtful that this patent is truly novel, compared to all the past patents out there.
There are over a dozen other obscure patents in IPWatchdog's museum. It's worth taking a look.