facepalm patents

[madires]

While looking at CLDs I came across http://www.google.de/patents/US8766548 which is about using a bridge rectifier and CLDs for driving LEDs from mains. What an ingenious invention!

Can you top this?

[CatalinaWOW]

I once spent time reviewing corporate patents and doing prior art searches.  There are so many stupid patents.  It is demeaning to those who actually have a clever idea.

Patents on using a chimney to clear smoke from a flaming device.

A patent on putting handles on a wheelbarrow.

The patent on the personal computer (Imagine, taking a cpu and adding a storage device and a display device.  Who could have thought of that?)

[JPortici]

While looking at CLDs I came across http://www.google.de/patents/US8766548 which is about using a bridge rectifier and CLDs for driving LEDs from mains. What an ingenious invention!

Can you top this?

not electronics, but my dad's new byke has a ring bell with "patent pending" written on it. i think i can provide a photo

[Siwastaja]

Practically all (or 99%) of the patents. This shouldn't be surprising, really.

Patents are exactly used for this - purely for blackmail and trolling, and to keep lawyers in business. This has been the only real usage for patents for at least 40-50 years, if not longer.

We all have the eye opening moment when we first come into realization of this. For me, as a kid, it was reading the Microsoft patent covering double click.

So, from a designer viewpoint, patents only serve one purpose: they are a sanity lithmus test. When you meet a potential business partner who starts talking about patents in a serious sense that they serve some other purpose than what I stated above, you know they are totally and utterly clueless about anything, and you need to run before they accidentally destroy everything in legal shit they don't understand.