WDWLT #4: There’s a patent office division for adult toys

I can only imagine what kind of searches will lead to this post…

Yesterday I helped a guy from the U.S. Patent Office pick up and deliver a couch. On the drive back to his place, I asked him what he thought was the coolest invention he’d come across. Since he works in the division that deals with environmental stuff, I immediately forgot what it was. Then he said, “I know, it’s not like the adult toy department.”

“There’s an adult toy department in the Patent Office?” I said.

“Yeah.” He wasn’t a very talkative sort.

“So,” I said, trying to fill the silence, “If some ambitious pervert working in his mother’s basement invents the Penetron 3000, improving on the Penetron 2000 by increasing the battery life or making it more ‘green,’ he’d then submit a request for a patent?”

“Yup.”

I was still blown away.

“So, there’s a whole division dedicated to examining the workability of sex toys?”

“Uh huh. It’s kind of hidden. It’s under the ‘Massage and Health’ Department or something like that.”

“So, there’s a whole group of people who, when asked what they did that day, say things like ‘Oh, I approved six patents for six vibrators, but I had to deny a patent for the Penetron 3000. Too much fire.?”

He lol’d.

If any of you are right-wing extremists like me, don’t worry — this isn’t funded by taxpayer dollars. The Patent Office is the only federal agency that’s entirely fee-funded, or close to it, my customer told me.