A friend of mine at the gym has been raving for the past two years about this new invention of his, a new money clip. He even told me the motto, "A Money Clip That Works."

I'm more of a wallet guy, so I wasn't really all that interested.

Then the other day I saw him and he looked like death warmed over. Poor guy told me hadn't slept for two days. Turns out that some other company already beat him to the punch:
Money Clips by M-Clip � The World's Finest Money Clips
got a patent on the almost identical product, and even had his exact same sales slogan down! Crazy.

He was convinced someone had stolen his idea from him. Perhaps. But I told him the story of how a friend of mine came up with the "idea" of putting billboard advertising on the back of freeway signs, for view from the other side of the freeway, by oncoming traffic.

To make a long story short, turned out that his "freeway billboard advertising" campaign had already been discussed on the internet five years ago, AND that two years ago someone in Las Vegas had already gotten a patent on the idea!

So...it just goes to prove, that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually come up with all the works of William Shakespeare. Or some such.