TOP DRAWER SATIRE

 

Save Your Breath
by
HL Carpenter

 

Here’s a potential money-saving tip: You might want to take a deep breath now, while the process is still unpatented.

Following precedent set by a large jam maker who obtained a patent for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Inexhale, Inc., an atmospheric services firm, submitted an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office. The request: Legal protection for what the company calls a unique method of nitrogen/oxygen intake.

“They’ve filed for exclusive rights to breathing,” says Res Piration, co-founder of Hyperventilate, a Washington-based hot-air tank. “We were blown away when we heard about it.”

The company’s patent lawyers defend the filing by saying Inexhale’s process involves a one-breath-at-a-time system developed over many years of research. They say they plan to blast through the patent process, despite breathe-in protests that are being organized in multiple cities.

“This invention is nothing to sneeze at,” says one. “With patent protection, the sky’s the limit in terms of profit.”

As of press time, the Patent office decision was still up in the air.

 

Originally published April 2005.