Harlequin Attempts To Patent The Kiss, Makes It Sound Really Unsexy

His lips descend, firm and demanding. You sway towards him bonelessly, feeling the heat course through your body. He lifts his head a fraction to whisper, his voice roughened with passion, “Pay up.” Harlequin’s patenting the kiss. Literally.

Well, they don’t actually have it yet: but Harlequin Enterprises, romance publisher, has applied for a patent. And here’s what, exactly, they’re patenting:

In the first step, called “The Prelude,” kissers “deploy the muscle around the mouth … to shape their lips in a manner conducive to kissing.” Step 2 involves “The Approach,” where couples bring their faces into “close proximity” while Step 3, or “The Seal,” occurs when lips touch with “varying degrees of pressure and intensity.” The lips may then “remain attached for an indeterminate period of time.”

Despite this being the total opposite of sexiness, Harlequin claims their patent will somehow encourage “the passion that’s needed and the chemistry that’s involved in a great kiss.” And in their defense, they say that if the patent’s granted they won’t, in fact, charge. That said, it probably won’t happen: experts tell AOL News that the concept lacks a “point of novelty.” Now, if it were the clinch, we think they’d stand a good chance.