Spinner craze inventor misses out on millions ... because she couldn’t afford a £310 patent
IT HAS become this year’s must-have toy for children across the globe.
But although the fidget spinner has made millions of pounds for manufacturers and retailers, it has not earned a penny for its inventor.
Catherine Hettinger, from Florida, created the device in the 1990s but surrendered the patent on it in 2005 because she could not afford the $400 (£310) renewal fee.
It meant others were able to copy the idea and manufacture finger spinners without paying her – although the toy remained in obscurity until earlier this year.
A video of teenagers performing tricks with fidget spinners went viral on YouTube and suddenly children were nagging their parents to buy them one.
Now sales are soaring into the tens of millions and racking up huge profits – it is so popular it occupies the top 20 slots in the Amazon best-selling toys list – but it has emerged that Mrs Hettinger, 62, is still struggling for money.
She is downsizing from her tiny house to a flat, wondering whether to get her disconnected telephone line reinstated, and trying to save for a car which works.
But while she admits her life would be extremely comfortable had she renewed the patent, she said she was glad the invention finally took off.
She said: ‘It’s challenging, being an inventor. Only about 3 per cent of inventions make any money.
‘I’ve watched other inventors mortgage their houses and lose a lot. You take roommates, you get help from friends and family. It is hard. Several people have asked me: “Aren’t you really mad?” But for me I’m just pleased that something I designed is something that people understand and really works for them.’
The palm-sized spinners – which the Mail is giving away to readers this weekend – consist of a ball bearing which sits in a threepronged plastic device which can then be flicked and spun round.
Mrs Hettinger designed the toy as a way to entertain her sevenyear-old daughter, Sara, and realised it also had calming benefits. At the time, she was suffering from myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that causes muscle weakness, and was also caring for her daughter, who is now 30.
She said: ‘I couldn’t pick up her toys or play with her much at all, so I started throwing things together with newspaper and tape, then other stuff.
‘ It wasn’t really even prototyping, it was some semblance of something, she’d start playing with it in a different way, I’d repurpose it.
‘We kind of co-invented it – she could spin it and I could spin it, and that’s how it was designed.’ Mrs Hettinger sold the designs at arts and craft fairs around Florida, eventually breaking even by selling several batches.
She was able to secure a patent on the design in 1997, but toy manufacturing giant Hasbro, which had been testing the design, decided not to proceed to production.
She added: ‘I’m a techie, I’m not a person who closes multimilliondollar deals. If there had been money or I’d had a venture capitalist back then, it would have been different.’
Mrs Hettinger now plans to manufacture and sell her original spinner design if a Kickstarter appeal can raise enough funds.
‘Being an inventor is challenging’