But, they’re not as much fun as the world’s worst. One website has stockpiled a collection of patently absurd patents – the ones that slid off the drawing board and into obscurity.

The baby patting machine is a mechanical arm which taps your toddlers touché until they fall asleep, the inflatable automatic bed maker is every parents dream, provided it’s not inflated at the wrong time. The motorized ice cream cone is built for those who are too lazy to exert their tongue unneccesarily..

And without even trying I can think of loads of applications for “an amusement apparatus for kicking the user’s buttocks” or put another way - an arse kicking machine…