Bizarro Patents, from David Lillienfeld
I wonder if there's some way to use bizarro patents as an index of where the market is at and may be headed—kind of like the hemline and skyscraper indices. For bizarro, I mean things like this: "Airbus Patents 'Bicycle Seats' That Look Terrifying For Airline Passengers". Yep, stale peanuts for $3, a can of flat Coke for $5 and a copy of Lance Armstrong's autobiography. Makes that 6 hour red eye from LAX to JFK really tempting, eh? Since I don't see any possible use for such a patent, my conclusion is that its filing represents sufficient accumulated wealth that a company doesn't much care about wasting some of it for the prestige of a patent. There must be some directional clue from such developments.