She’s said she isn’t bitter though
The woman who invented the fidget spinner never made any money of her creation, despite tens of millions of the things being sold.
Back in 2017, fidget spinners were the craze that gripped the nation. In what felt like the blink of an eye, suddenly everywhere you want you could see people spinning little pieces of plastic between their fingers.
Designed to help people of all ages release some stressful energy and stop themselves fidgeting, tens of millions of the toys were sold across the globe.
But the woman who came up with the idea never saw a single penny for them.
Florida-based inventor Catherine Hettinger had initially come up with the creation as a way to entertain her seven-year-old daughter in 1993, and tried to pitch the gizmos to toy retailers, but to little avail.
Still, she took out a patent on the device so that no one else could copy her invention.
However, by 2005 she could no longer afford the $400 (£310) renewal feel, so gave up the patent, the Guardian reports.
This meant anyone was now able to come up with their own version of the toy.
Lo and behold, in 2014 Scott McCoskery invented something he called the Torqbar, which was to all intents and purposes a fidget spinner.
He was looking for something to stop him fidgeting with his hands in meetings at work.
And a few years later, fidget spinners were all the rage.
Speaking to the Guardian in 2017, Hettinger admitted that had she held on to the patent, she would be sitting on a small fortune.
But she said she wasn’t bitter about anything, and instead takes heart from the fact that something she came up with ended up being so popular.
She told the publication: “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.
“There’s just a lot of circumstances in modern life when you’re boxed in, you’re cramped in, and we need this kind of thing to de-stress. It’s also fun. That’s the thing about culture, once everybody starts doing it, it’s kind of OK.”
Related links:
Man who claims to have invented Bitcoin wins claim to one million Bitcoin
This video proves that fidget spinners are actually extremely cool if you take them into space
