Patents
have been granted for a large number of inventions which are of
dubious usefulness, or perhaps reflect some strange characteristic
of their inventor; but in any case they are pretty humourous to
read.
All of the links here are to pages
at www.delphion.com [except
for the one from CIPO].
I highly recommend this site for searching the patent files.
Click Here
to see a gallery of strange patents maintained by the site.
This device is, of course, a Bird
Diaper. Presumably for birds which just can't be house-trained.
Again, what it sounds like. The
idea is that modern people would like to be flung high into the
air, alive, by a device that medieval folks used to fling large
dead animals at other people whom they didn't like. I'm not kidding.
It's patented. For more on flinging things, see the Archvillain
Trebuchet Page.
"A kit for synthesizing a
scent substantially similar to that produced in the anal glands
of skunks is provided..." Don't all jump up at once.
US6004596: Sealed crustless sandwich
"The upper and lower fillings are preferably comprised of peanut butter and the center filling is comprised of at least jelly". It's a patent on a PB&J.
A method for keeping a satellite correctly oriented while in orbit. The thing is, this, evidently, only works if the force of gravity is a PUSH, as claimed by its inventor, Maurice Mitchell. The word PUSH appears in capital letters throughout the text of the patent, in case we miss the point. The concept has somewhat of a colorful following; see these:
Gravity
is a Push, the web page
of the patent.
Does
Gravity Push, or does Gravity Pull? Best viewed only by the
colorblind
Wright's
Push Gravity Gravity emanates
from the Sun and pushes things to earth
I think the last one is Mr. "I can do tricks with magnets so I must be right about gravity" who has been on Space News from time to time.
While we are in the 'alternative science' zone, here is a vastly entertaining patent application filed in 1990 with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office:
"The 'Cosmic Cube' creates cubical wavefields by an entirely novel method of technology. Working across a time axis, it correctly identifies and cristalizes [sic] all components involved in any project. It is universally applicaable [sic] and quantums the competitive edge of the user. It establishes a mathematically precise cause-effect solution to within .0007% accuracy by the use of 72 interrelated electro-magnetic circuits. These have 144 entree-exit windows which can allow a single or multiple user (individual, group, profession, corporation, village, town, city, province, nation etc.) to plot a precise course of action, and get a full cause-effect diagram, graph, printout, bilan spreadsheet, free of human error, before a project is started. In scale it runs from the simplest maths of 2+2=4 to E=mc3".
Yeah, and it doubles on sax. It doubles on sax, and it finds you a job [I believe McDonald's has more than 144 'entree-exit' windows in Canada]. This is definitely one of the most humorous legal documents you can find on the net.
There are dozens of these. Here
are some
US04338690
US04551866
US04914757
US05058216
US05222260
US05289593
US05291618
US05504947
US05781938
Miscellaneous other weird things, all of them more or less self-descriptive: