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India: The Spinning Story Of The Fidget Spinner
12 March 2018
by Avadhi Jain
Khurana and Khurana
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The 2017 fad of fidget spinners hasn't yet faded, but in fact is intensively growing globally. For those who are not aware of this toy, it is a spinning toy meant to relieve stress in adults and kids. Arguably, depending on your taste you may find this spinning movement either stress relieving or irritating. Whatever the case maybe, if you have seen this toy, you ought to have thought about the huge profits the patent owner must have received from this basic toy. The devastating fact is that she does not make even a single penny of these sales.
After the recent boom in the sales of this toy, a few US newspapers claimed to have found the original inventor, Catherine Hettinger, a woman living in Orlando, USA. She held the patent on "a spinning toy" for 8 years since January 1997 until she had to abandon the patent for she could not afford the renewal fees. In accordance with the USA law to enjoy a 20 year term for patent, maintenance/renewal fees should be paid at 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 years after the grant of patent.
Though, she claimed to have sold thousands of these toys at fairs in Florida, and apparently pitched the idea to couple of companies like Hasbro, it got her nowhere. Finally not wanting to invest more than she reaped, she decided to abandon the invention.
When you analyze this situation closely, one might argue that even if she had paid her renewal fees in 2005, since her patent was granted in 1997 under the old US patent law (which grants a patent for a term of 17 years), she still wouldn't have reaped the benefits of her invention in 2017. In addition, the trending fidget spinners are not identical to her original design:"A finger spinner comprising: a thin, round, single thickness, primary sheet of plastic material molded to form a unitized central finger placement area means and a skirt balance, "and thus it may not even come under her patent's exclusive protection. Moreover, new versions of the spinner are already in the market like fidget cubes, dice etc.
Even though her being the inventor of fidget spinner is still debated, she has started her own Kickstarter campaign to sell her original design and bring back the "classic fidget spinner".