Silly Patent: Animal Ear Protector

So this one is actually extremely adorable and will make your puppy look like it belongs in space... but still useless. US 4233942 A "provides a device for protecting the ears of animals, especially long-haired dogs, from becoming soiled by the animal's food while the animal is eating."
Just look how cute that puppy is up there. However, the way I look at this device is that someone stuck two empty toilet paper rolls onto two clasps from a hat. Granted, the inventor, James D. Williams, discussed prior art but all he seemed to mention was previous ear protector inventions. No where does he mention toilet paper rolls or the clasp of a hat. James was definitely successful in creating a device that is not obvious, but what he doesn't realize is that anyone could make this at home practically for free. Plus, I personally think its adorable when puppies haven't grown into their ears and end up getting it into their food so this invention is useless in my perspective.

What this week of Silly Patents has taught me is just how creative (to put in nicely) people are in this world. There are hundreds of thousands of patents in existence, and a lot of them have truly changed to lives of everyone in our society today. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands is quite a lot and definitely leaves room for stupid ones to get approved. But, even though they may seem stupid, major props to the inventors for thinking outside of the box on these ones.