Funny today money tomorrow

There is a sudden rise in number of patents applied. Here is a list of hilarious yet interesting patents:-
1.Shoe phone case/ holder
2.Airbag for phone.(By Amazon founder Jeff Bezos)
3.Vibrating tatoo notification.(Nokia)
4.Banana phone protector.
5.Rotatable keyboard.(Blackberry)
6.Air Expelling keyboard.(Apple)
7.Sliding modular bay for phones (Microsoft).
(Source )
As you might have noticed a few big guns who have patented utterly  vague ideas, so if tomorrow while brushing your teeth if you get an idea on squeezing toothpaste back into the tube dont forget to patent it. Or wait may be its already patented.

Intellectual property rights or IPR is now an issue which can have serious ramifications. It is still a debate if IPR hinders innovation or rewards the inventor.
For decades, the Patent's Trademark Office (PTO) was generally reluctant to issue patents that covered software. But in the mid-1990s, the Federal Circuit (the court that hears patent appeals) first held that an algorithm implemented in a general-purpose computer could be patentable.

This opened the floodgates for software patents. The PTO now issues about 40,000 software patents a year. That's more than 100 per day. Unfortunately, the quality of these patents has tended to be very low. On average, examiners spend only 18 hours reviewing each patent application. This is not nearly enough time to properly check if the invention is new. To make things worse, the claims in software patents (this is the language that is supposed to mark the boundaries of the invention) are often vague and overbroad—giving unscrupulous patent owners the ability to claim that their patent covers a wide range of technology.

This loopholes in patents are breeding grounds for patent trolls. Patent trolls are the firms which instead of inventing something buy patents and earn from litigation suites  on those who seem to have infringed their IPR. These litigations can cost a fortune, patent trolls target small time startups and individuals who are less likely to fight back. These patent trolls then ask for out of court settlements which can also cost in millions of USD. For more on this read .(Source).

Now your funny patent ideas earn you fortune or costs you one depends on how genuine it is.