was granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office

United States Patent and Trademark Office

The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...

 (USPTO) on August 22, 1995 for a method of exercising a cat by getting it to follow a spot generated by a laser pointer

Laser pointer

A laser pointer or laser pen is a small portable device with a power source and a laser emitting a very narrow coherent low-powered beam of visible light, intended to be used to highlight something of interest by illuminating it with a small bright spot of colored light...

. The patent has been taken as an example of a "goofy" , "seemingly absurd" or questionable patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

justifying, in the opinion of some, reform of the patent system. (The original filing date is 1993-11-02.)

The patent expired in 2007 for failure to pay maintenance fees.