Our second pet-related patent describes a supurrb piece of hardware for anyone with a fluffy coworker at their home office: Jamaal Kinney Speights’s “Laptop or keyboard simulating pet bed” (US10398125).

Speights sets the scene for the invention in the “Discussion of Related Art” section of the patent:

“Pet owners, and owners of cats in particular, know that upon sitting down at a computer their pet frequently desires to lay directly on the computer keyboard. While pet owners frequently attribute this behavior to a desire for affection, or conversely to a desire to annoy the pet owner, more likely the draw of the keyboard has more to do with warmth and proximity to interesting activity. Since people with pets sitting at a computer keyboard typically need to use the keyboard, there is a need for a device that simulates a keyboard but provides for greater warmth and for interesting sound, light and tactile effects to divert their pet.”

Speights’s pet bed has many useful features for distracting an interfurring feline, including:

• a pressure-activated switch to switch on a heating element, a keyboard sound simulating device, a vibration device and/or an illumination device when a pet’s weight is applied to the bed;
• a fabric portion “to further aid in the comfort and warmth of the pet”; and
• a simulated laptop display.