Weird Patents
Absurd, funny, and unexpectedly specific inventions that somehow made it through the USPTO.
The patent record is full of the absurd. Patent examiners are required to evaluate novelty and non-obviousness, but not good taste — which is why the USPTO has granted patents on self-venting toilet seats, motorized ice cream cones, and a method for swinging on a swing. This collection digs into the weirdest of the weird.
The 1891 Patent That Settles the Toilet Paper Argument: It's Over
Households have argued about whether the roll should hang over or under for more than a century. The original patent drawing, filed by Seth Wheeler in 1891, shows the paper coming over the top. The inventor's own diagram is not ambiguous.
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Someone Patented the Little Plastic Table in Your Pizza Box
The three-legged plastic stool in the middle of a delivered pizza has a name, a purpose, and a 1985 United States patent. It exists because a hot cardboard lid sags, and a sagging lid ruins the cheese.
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The Greenhouse Helmet: A Patent to Grow Plants on Your Own Head
In 1979, the USPTO granted a patent for a clear domed helmet, worn over the head, containing live plants — so the wearer could breathe air freshened by their own personal, portable garden. It is exactly as wonderful and impractical as it sounds.
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The Kissing Shield: A Patented Membrane for Germ-Free Affection
In 1998, the USPTO granted a patent for a thin membrane stretched across a heart-shaped handle, held between two people so they could kiss without exchanging germs. It won an Ig Nobel Prize. It was also, its inventor insisted, entirely serious.
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The Santa Claus Detector
In 1996, the USPTO granted a patent for a Christmas stocking rigged with a light that switches on when Santa arrives. The patent's stated purpose is to give children 'a visual indication' of Santa's visit — filed, apparently, in complete earnest.
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The Patent for a Mask That Physically Stops You From Eating
In 1982, a patent was granted for an 'anti-eating face mask' — a cup-shaped cage strapped over the mouth and locked, intended to prevent the wearer from eating between meals. It is one part diet aid, one part muzzle, and entirely real.
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The Beerbrella: A Tiny Umbrella Whose Only Job Is to Shade Your Beer
In 2003, the USPTO granted a patent for a miniature umbrella, roughly the size of a saucer, that clamps onto a beer bottle to keep the sun off it. The name in the official patent title is, in full legal seriousness, the 'Beerbrella.'
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The Patent for a Machine That Kicks You in the Rear
In 2001, the USPTO granted a patent for a coin-operated amusement device whose entire function is to let a user pay to have a rotating boot kick them in the buttocks. It is real, it is fully illustrated, and it is exactly what it sounds like.
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The Patent for Patting Yourself on the Back
In 1986, the USPTO granted a patent for a device consisting of a simulated human hand on a spring-loaded arm, mounted so that a person could reach up, pull it down, and administer a congratulatory pat to their own back.
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The Patent for Keeping a Dog's Ears Out of Its Food
In 2002, a patent was granted for a set of tubes that slip over the long ears of breeds like spaniels and setters, holding them up and back so they don't drag through the food bowl. It is deeply silly and, if you own such a dog, deeply reasonable.
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The Patent for Surviving a Fire by Breathing Through the Toilet
In 1982, an inventor received a US patent for a fresh-air breathing device intended for high-rise fires. The device was a snorkel. You inserted it past the water in the toilet bowl and breathed the fresh air drawn down the plumbing's vent stack.
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Smucker's Patented the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
In 1999, the J.M. Smucker Company received a US patent on a 'Sealed Crustless Sandwich.' For seven years, the company sent cease-and-desist letters to small-town caterers, school lunch programs, and competing sandwich makers, before the patent was finally pulled apart on reexamination.
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The Patent for Birthing a Baby by Centrifugal Force
In 1965, a New York couple named George and Charlotte Blonsky received a US patent for a machine that spun a woman in labor on a rotating turntable, using centrifugal force to deliver the child. They were entirely sincere. They had detailed engineering drawings.
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The Patent on Pointing a Laser at a Cat
In 1995, the USPTO granted Kevin Amiss and Martin Greenstein a patent on the act of exercising a cat by getting it to chase a moving spot of light. The patent was real. The cats did not pay royalties.
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The Comb-Over Patent
In 1977, two brothers in Orlando, Florida received a US patent for a method of combing one's hair to disguise baldness. It is among the most-cited examples of why the patent system needed reform — and a winner of the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize.
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The Five-Year-Old Who Patented Swinging on a Swing
In 2002, the USPTO granted Steven Olson, age five, a patent for a 'method of swinging on a swing.' His patent-attorney father had been making a point. The point landed.
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A Toilet for Automatically Exhausting Odious Air
An 1898 patent for a self-venting toilet seat that drew foul air directly into the chimney — a Victorian solution to a Victorian problem.
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The Mousetrap Is the Most-Patented Device in American History. Almost None of Them Work.
More than four thousand mousetrap patents have been granted in the United States, and thousands more rejected. Roughly twenty have ever made money. The one that won was patented in 1894 and costs about a quarter.
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