Hey, that's great! My first patent was issued just this past year, and I have one currently pending. Both are oil-field instrumentation related.

Patents vary in complexity, validity and applicability. In filing patents, we have to do patent searches as a matter of course, just so we don't run into an prior art and nulify ourselves. I was doing research on intertial propulsion for another company some years back, and I couldn't believe some of the patents I read. Some of them are bizzare; some look like perpetual motion machines; others are simply impractical; still others are downright STUPID!!! Kinda make you wonder what da heck the Patent Office was thinking granting them in the first place.

Still, patents can make great reading material - from being educational to amusing.