I once worked at a company that paid $1K to employees who got patents. Most employees (that I knew) never bothered, or only when they actually invented somethin

I once worked at a company that paid $1K to employees who got patents. Most employees (that I knew) never bothered, or only when they actually invented something. But this one manager and one of his reports formed a 2-person patent brainstorming club. They'd book a conference room regularly and spend the meeting thinking up worthless patents. As an example, one that I remember was something like "spellcheck in a context that usually doesn't have spellcheck." Others were nothing other than descriptions of products we were working on, such as "A web based interface for communicating such information from such a person to another type of person." If you looked in the meeting room, you would see these two giggling like kids, slapping the table, falling out of their chairs. They each had stacks of patent awards in their offices. Most of us had none. I am happy that they had so much fun, but that is what patents are in practice.