Somehow under the impression that people don't spend 100% of their time holding, looking at, or anxious because they are not holding and looking at their cell phones, Nokia has filed a patent for a message-alert skin tattoo that could make the old "My phone was set to silent," excuse a thing of the past.

Back in 2006, Ignacio Marc Asperas sent the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office a 25-page application titled "Apparatus for facilitating the construction of a snow man/woman." Earlier this month the Office finally approved his application, and starting this winter Asperas will begin suing everyone who builds snowmen…

It turns out there's a reason your iPhone has been stalking you: It might use your private data to hook you up with nearby iPhone owners. And you thought your mom was an awkward matchmaker.

America's favorite fighter jet Charlie Sheen, apparently realizing he is sitting on a hypothetical goldmine of branded paraphernalia, is attempting to trademark 22 of the phrases he's coined during his latest manic episode, including:

Did you know Charlie Sheen is an inventor and holds a genuine U.S. patent? It's true. It's not a sex toy (although it sure looks like one). But if his $100 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. and Two and a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre doesn't work out, he can always fall back on the crazy business schemes he hatched…

After indicating earlier this year that it would create a new category specifically for medical marijuana trademarks, the US Patent and Trademark Office has now reversed itself. Which is good, because, dude. You cannot trademark "Maui Wowie." Come on, dude.

In 1993, someone thought people "would enjoy having a desirable flavor imparted to them when they chew or suck upon the ends of the temple arms of their eyeglasses." He patented the flavored eyeglasses boot!

The feds have granted Google a patent on an internet-video version of the game "rock, paper, scissors" (see above). Or at least, that's what they think they've done. Really, they've enabled a brilliant way for Google to tax pornographers.

It's hard to believe that there is actually an inventor of product placement; like swine flu, it always seemed just nature's dark side. But someone thinks he did in fact invent it and is willing to sue to prove it.

Apple today received a patent on a head-mounted laser video display. Now that the three-year old application has finally been approved, Steve Jobs can put these babies through his grueling design process and hopefully pretty them up a bit.

After a five-and-a-half-year fight, Google and its attorneys have managed to convince federal bureaucrats to bestow a patent on the company's iconic home page. We always thought the page was brain-dead simple, but apparently it's an innovative "graphical user interface."

Mark Zuckerberg was photographed in intimate conversation with Microsoft's former CTO in Sun Valley last week. The Facebook founder might simply have been quizzing Nathan Myhrvold about Zuckerberg doppelgänger Bill Gates. But there's a more interesting possibility.

Discovery Communications, the owner of cable channels like FitTV and Animal Planet, is suing Amazon.com, maker of the Kindle, over an electronic-books patent taken out by its founder and CEO, John Hendricks, years ago.