Patents and original thoughts

I thought of a new product that I have never seen before. I thought of it quite a while ago, but didn't know how I should go about making a working prototype.

Today, I finally made one. I took a clipboard that I bought at an office supply store, cut two horizontal half-inch slits in it, and threaded a hose clamp through one slit and back through the other.

What this created is a shopping cart clipboard. Imagine walking through the grocery store with a handful of coupons and a shopping list, trying to figure out where to put it all when you are picking out your merchandise. Wouldn't a shopping cart clipboard help in this regard???

Well, apparently I didn't think of it FIRST.

I did think it up, and it was absolutely not based on anything I've ever seen or heard of, so I consider it to be an original idea. However, there is already a patent registered in the U.S. under the title of "shopping cart clipboard" and the abstract almost exactly matches the description of my product.

That sucks.