The Olympics are upon us, and even though we haven’t had an official opening ceremony, some of the competition has started, especially in soccer. The USA men’s team won’t be there due to a colossal blunder on literally the last play by backup keeper Sean Johnson, but the women’s team will be there looking to defend their gold medals from 2004 and 2008. There are sure to be numerous stories related to the fan favorite events such as swimming, gymnastics, and track and field, such as the dolphin-like Michael Phelps going for more gold than Fort Knox–but at this time of year, we want to honor the smaller events. The Extras of the Olympics, if you will. These events give Olympic hope to so many people most of us would never hear of otherwise. Let’s all raise our glasses in their honor.
Here are some interesting patents relating to these niche sports!
1) Rhythm and speed trainer for measuring exercise
No, that’s not a fly-swatter, that’s a badminton racket!
Badminton may be a rarely played lawn game in the US, but in other places, it is very popular. And what better way to improve your badminton swing than to incorporate electronics. This device gives you handy dandy statistics on how fast and wicked awesome your swing is.
He wants to pump *clap*, you up!
Archery may be a niche sport, but now anyone can get into it with this exerciser. It looks awfully similar to that spring exerciser used by the older brother in The Goonies, so make sure no one ties you up with it.
Rock ‘em sock ‘em fencebots?
What better way to unleash your inner Inigo Montoya than train on this Rock’em Sock’em Robots style game. You’ll be ready for Medieval Times in no time.
4) Robot table tennis ball server assembly
Who needs friends when you have one of these robot buddies?
If you can’t train like Forest Gump, this bad boy will help you work on all parts of your game. You’ll be playing Ping Pong like Uncle Jesse in no time.
Next time: Danny tells his harrowing tale of only watching the Olympics via highlights, as he doesn’t have cable and refuses to bow to NBC’s endgame of only allowing cable subscribers to watch its online streaming feeds, rather than offering access for a fee, in order to up unnecessary cable subscriptions.
Find previous writings and musings from the off-kilter Danny Rooney here.
This post was contributed by Registered Patent Agent Dan Wolka and Chris Jagalla. The Intellogist blog is provided for free by Intellogist’s parent company, Landon IP, a major provider of patent search, technical translation, and information services.
Filed under: Items of Interest Tagged: | archery, badminton, fencing, funny patents, olympics, patent, patents, table tennis
[...] robots to… robots, here is a round-up of some interesting Olympic sport patents. USA! [...]