Back in the day, I decided to engineer my own laser tag system. (Like, my own guns and targets/vests/etc.) And laser tag systems basically always work via IR signals very similar to TV remote controls.
I did the research, wrote the code, bought the components, and put together a few prototypes on breadboards to at least test that I had the electronics right (if not the optics.) (I ran into issues, though. I put together four prototypes and all four seemed to be emitting the signals via the IR LEDs correctly, but only one was able to receive the signals. It was years after I gave up on the project that I ran across some article somewhere that mentioned that breadboards and high frequency signals do not play well together. I haven't confirmed that, but that's my theory what the issue was. Anyway, back to the main story.)
I was working on this project with the TV going in the background. And, amazingly, some stars aligned and the signal I told my laser tag prototypes to emit coincidentally matched something my TV recognized. (I think it was volume down, but I don't remember for sure.) And my TV started responding to my laser tag system.
I got the signal I was having my prototypes emit from a publicly-published open standard specifically made for laser tag systems. So, the format of the individual signals/packets between TVs and that open laser tag system are just identical and some of the message identifiers collide.
It was a cool thing to accidentally stumble across.