Yup. A friend worked for a now-extinct tech company that strongly encouraged employees to patent as much as possible. On his desk, he had one of those drinking bird toys. [1] When the head got sufficiently wet, water would drip onto his desk. He made a little celluloid collar for the bird so that excess water would get dumped back into the cup the bird was drinking from.
On a lark, he wrote it up as patentable innovation. His boss thought it was funny and approved it. So did the lawyers. He ended up with one of the little plaques they gave employees for patents. And maybe a cash bonus? It was long enough ago that I forget. But apparently that's what IBM does: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17835839