Work has found a new way to piss me off. Last year I designed this "thing" as part of a project, and one of the guys I was working with thought it was amazing. He insisted we try to patent it but the whole time I doubted it was worth it.

A couple weeks back we had to present our application to this patent committee within my company where I spent 30 minutes trying to convince them that my piddly little idea was worth a full patent application when I didn't think it was myself. It was a little intimidating standing in front of these big shots who see patent applications everyday. I had looked at some of the other applications that were being presented that day and there were some truly revolutionary ideas, whereas I was trying to patent the equivalent of a clock potato.

Committee Member: Can you explain what the innovation is here?
Coworker 1: Well we have this thing, and this other thing (making wild hand gestures)
Me: (interrupting) What my coworker is trying to say is...

I go on to explain the design in real words. I captivate them with my Picasso-ish white board drawings.

Committee Member: I see.
Coworker 2: The thing is...blah blah blah.

Coworker 2 proceeds to say exactly what I just said, but with far more stupid in his voice.

Committee Member: It seems like there was a problem, and you solved it. How is that an innovation?

This is what I've been thinking the whole time. I mumble something and thank god that our 30 minutes are up.

A couple weeks have passed and we have the results of their decision on whether to proceed with a formal patent application or not. Result? DENIED!! Hurray!! This was expected, however I was welcoming the idea since it'd mean an end to this crap. Unfortunately they found a way to stick it to me one last time. The idea wasn't good enough for the company to patent, however it was good enough to make sure some other company couldn't patent the same thing. Now I have to write up a bunch of crap describing the idea which gets released to the public, stopping anyone else's patent attempts. I'm completely thrilled that I get to spend my time creating a patent cock block.

I wish I had patented this.