Ridiculous Patents #1: Swinging

Have you ever sat on a swing and made yourself move just by alternately pulling on the two ropes/chains? If you answered "yes," you have infringed US Patent #6368227.

Think you can skirt the "invention" by adding a forward and backward motion so that you end up swinging in an oval-shaped pattern? Sorry, your blatant patent infringing actions are in direct conflict with claims 3 and 4. Let's face it, the inventor of swinging worked very hard to develop this idea, and has to recoup his costs somehow. Doesn't he deserve some of your money?

If it weren't for the incentives provided by the monopoly power of patent grant, maybe we never would have figured out how to swing this way.

What will they grant patents for next? Salt?

It's enough to make you think that the storyline patent actually stands a great chance of being granted, doesn't it?

(Note: this patent was filed 5 years ago and granted in 2002, so it may be old news to some of you. If you haven't heard of this before, welcome to PatentInsanityVille. We'll try to highlight one of these on a regular basis, brought to you by patent offices around the world).