My friend Ralph has two patents, the first being 8,935,202 granted January 13, 2015 and filed way back in June 2004. In the early days of google patents, Ralph checked to see if his patent had been granted. It hadn’t been when he checked but he did find something astonishing. It turned out that his great-great-grandfather had been issued patent 306,898 for a purse lock in 1884 . Neither Ralph nor his father knew about it. Apparently it was granted shortly after his great-great-grandfather had emigrated to the US from wherever Brendlers hail from. It’s unlikely that Ralph would have ever found this patent had it not been for google patents.
Ralph’s more recent patent is 10,796,235. Both of his patents are computer related and aren’t nearly as fun as patenting a purse lock.