yes. most very large corps. that like to keep patent portfolios will encourage engineers to patent (assigned to the co. of course) anything slightly creative or unusual. or sometimes anything at all that sounds slightly technical.

the engineer gets his name on the patent and maybe a bit of prestige. the org gets another (sometimes bad) patent in the portfolio.

skimming the patent https://patents.google.com/patent/US4135240A/en it seems actually pretty well drafted and pretty good (patentable).