In 1994, the patent "Apparatus for Stimulating a 'high five'" was granted (US Patent No. 5356330) to Albert Cohen. The patent's abstract states "an apparatus for stimulating a 'high five' including a lower arm portion having a simulated hand removably attached thereto, an upper arm portion, an elbow joint for pivotally securing the lower arm portion to the upper arm portion, and a spring biasing element for biasing the upper and lower arm portions towards a predetermined alignment."
It is very interesting to see this invention back at the day. I would imagine it must be useful for people who are unable to move their arms. However, I wonder why the inventor develop this apparatus for just stimulating a "high five" and not other more relevant purpose that would be more useful for disable people. It seems obvious that every arm is able to give a high five, but inventing a device for it does not seem that obvious for me, it seems a bit surprising to me. The action of "high five" also would seem like a common sense for people, since everyone almost experiences a "high five" scenario. However, an apparatus that can stimulate a person's arm to just give a "high five" does not seem much of a common sense to me. A lot of patents, including the one I posted early, pants with extended zippers seem interesting, but people would never imagine others patent such inventions when the fundamental idea is intuitive. I never thought people would be able to patent these inventions, till last Monday when we read a couple of examples on "silly patents". Another thing we need to consider that these "silly patents" filed dates. It could be silly from nowadays's point of view, but what about back at the day when the inventor filed the patent?
