Patent Attorney and Founder
Austin: I’m Austin Hilum, and I’m Steven Faio. Throughout the decades, we have been introduced to objects that have entertained and engaged millions. Early on, it was the yo-yo;
Steven: In the ’60s, we had the Etch A Sketch; in the ’80s, there was the Rubik’s Cube.
Austin: Now, introducing
Steven: the toy of the future: this… anything.
Steven: The user does, zip string follows.
Steven: The string flies around 35 mph and yet is safe to the touch.
Austin: All right, sharks, watch this trick. It’s called the swirl.
Steven: This one’s the corkscrew.
Austin: This one’s the step-through. And the pop.
Steven: Presenting the portal!
Steven: Woo, zip string glides around smooth objects. All smooth objects! Zip string has taken the world by storm. “Oh my God, it’s so cool.
Steven: “We are here for a $100,000 investment for 10% of our business. Sharks, who’s ready to Z?
Austin: Let’s show you guys how it works. Some of you’ve already figured it out. So what you want to do is you want to hold it upright like this with the logo. Yeah, yeah, there you go. You have your movements, guys. Come on, I love it. We love it too.”
Kevin: “Did you invent it?”
Austin: “Yes.”
Roger: “Tell us the story. How you came up with it?”
Steven: “I’m super passionate about electronics. A couple of years ago, I watched a physics teacher demonstrate a benchtop string launcher. He had this device that would launch a string in a loop, and I took that benchtop version, compacted it, made it handheld, and I made this prototype. Everybody loved it, but I knew I couldn’t make a scalable business out of it until I had Austin over.
JD: Pretty exciting, lots of social zip string. 10,000. So pretty cool, pretty cool invention.”
JD: So, they did have a patent on it. In fact, they have several. And I want to showcase that first if that’s all right with you, good sir.
Matt: Um, you know, I guess I’ll blly.
JD: Oh, thank you, that’s awesome, appreciate it.
JD: So, this first patent was issued just last year, and uh, so there’s four, three named inventors. And, uh, this,
Matt: that tracks with what they said on the show.
JD: It does all, all good so far. Ziping LLC is the applicant. So the company is it, and they’re also the assignees. So they, they assigned their rights to the company formed it, which is cool. They did use an attorney. Unfortunately, they didn’t go bold, but I will highlight that, um, it does reference some provisional applications.
Matt: And this is kind of fine print you don’t always look into this,
JD: but of course, being a patent attorney, I was curious. You see, there’s actually referen to two separate provisional applications, applications. This is not atypical, so I’m guessing that they filed their own provisional on September 6, 2022, then they wisened up somehow, perhaps they went and knocked on the door of a an attorney and they said, ‘you know what, here’s what we’ve submitted and like, you know what we need to do better.’ So, a second provisional was filed and it can be filed. There’s no problem. You can file as many provisionals as you want, as long as they’re within a one-year time period. So, oh, sorry, here it is. So, this first provisional was November 21, right? And then a second one was filed September of ’22. And so, what they, what you can do as long as you’re within one year, they filed November 17, ’22, right? Um, so as long as it’s right within that onee time period, one day before this first provisional, so it was 364 days after the first, you can make reference to a previously filed provisional application. And what that does, gives you a nice continuity all the way back to that November 18th, 2021 date. So any inventor that files after November 18th, 2021, would have lost. So, I know it’s a lot of timelines and nuance but don’t miss that, it’s important to catch the priority date. Their patent is pretty straightforward, I thought that the claims were really well structured, very simple. So, it tells me it’s a nice broad patent. What’s really cool too is that it’s all about the string. That’s what gives it its sort of secret sauce. It’s a body of housing, the wheels spin it, but the string has fibers in it, so when it goes through the air, it increases air friction and that’s how it’s getting additional drag and lift in the air. So, they showcase this but they have a nice detail of the actual airflow having these little hairs and fibers that stand out when it’s put in a certain direction. Interesting.
Matt: Hey, JD. Quick question for you. In that Shark Tank, one of the inventors like referenced that he got the idea from like a professor or something like that.
JD: Oh, yeah.
Matt: Tell me about that because that doesn’t seem like all of a sudden like is this novel if somebody else already kind of created you know this.
JD: Yeah, and that that definitely would be a very public declaration that maybe there was some derivation of an original concept. So, yeah, if you derive, if you learn from someone else, a concept or an invention, then you’re not the inventor. So that is like that is a major issue if what is claimed does actually cover the scope of what this individual learned in physics class from the professor. They have unfortunately defrauded the patent office. Now, I’m not sure if that fact pattern lines up, certainly you can learn certain methods and you know, theories in a course or class and then apply it and avoid running into issues like that but it’s a great observation, very close listening there, Mr. Kulseth.
Matt: Thank you, thank you. Professor,
JD: Very astute.”
JD: “One minute on trademark, sir. Any comments with zip string?”
Matt: “No, I mean, so I mean I’ll tell you a little bit about zip string’s trademark portfolio. So they have actually a pretty well-rounded trademark portfolio. They have something like six registrations at the US PTR or pending applications for a number of different products. It looks like they have several different taglines, you know, such as ‘can you push a string?’ They have logos registered, they have a product called Luma, it looks like,
JD: okay,
Matt: another slogan called ‘wonderment awaits’. So, it seems like they’re pretty active in their trademark protection and registration work. Right, again, I say this pretty often on on this podcast but I would love to see a registration or an application for the online retail store.
JD: You know, that’s definitely where they’re pushing they’re selling.
Matt: Yeah, I mean they’re selling these products on probably a variety of different platforms, Amazon, their own websites, stuff like that but at the end of the day, there’s nothing that’s preventing somebody else from registering zipstring potentially for an online store that sells different products maybe different category products but you know, you’d want to own that in my estimation,
JD: right. Very good points. They did, they did get a deal. They had Robert and Kevin both went together for 20% equity for just 100 grand and this was in the end of 2022. Um, there’s no update yet. I mean, they’re still selling online they’re still at the same price point they’re $24.99. One of the issues is they talked about in the episode was their a supply chain problem. They had a lot of orders but they weren’t able to fill they just couldn’t build the thing fast enough that’s why they only sold 10,000. So, uh, they were going to be in Walmart Canada in 2023 so we’ll wait for the update but apparently there was a deal done they got they got some you know investor money seems like the Sharks might have got a heck of a deal you get 20% of that company for 100 grand
Matt: um yeah
JD: you know that’s a toy it’s a toy to company they they’re building a brand around one specific toy they call it a separate category in the episode I’m not sure if it’s quite that different but sure seems you know unique to me and definitely worthy of of of patent protection so I think they protected themselves well getting the getting the patent
Matt: yeah very cool I like it good find.