Patent Attorney and Founder
Hi everyone I’m JD Houvener your host of the bold today’s show we’re here with the inventor entrepreneur business owner get your daily dose of inspiration to make the world a better place now we’re having fun this week we’re looking at the the soccer ball and the spirit of honoring the the World Cup which is about it all around us and happening in the news if you haven’t checked it out yeah take a look I mean the game is fun I’m enjoying watching it my favorite is Uruguay I love seeing them battle it out on the turf so today we’re taking a close look at sort of this innovation that’s happened over time in creating the the soccer ball right we’ve kind of take for granted lately and we looked at yesterday kind of interesting image that showed how the soccer ball in a modern soccer ball is really taken on very subtle incremental changes these days and today we’re taking a little step back from that that detailed technical evaluation and we’re instead looking at some really fun novelties that have come up and actually have been granted patents for in the realm of soccer when I found and I call them novelties but these certainly are functional this first one here take a look this is sort of an interesting you know if you’re playing by yourself instead of kicking the ball and having to go chase it this is a way to actually have it attached so it’s attached to your leg or maybe the other leg and as you kick the ball it’s tethered simply tether so this this invention first came about in the 70s and the inventor here thought gosh you know why do I have to go chase that ball across the parking lot or across the field I’m gonna go to practice juggling the ball you know on my knee or kicking it off the ground and if I mess up and you know kick the ball off to the side it’s not going to go you know 10 to 15 feet down the road it’s gonna stay attached to your leg so it’s a very novel invention I think it’s kind of a fun almost a gimmicky thing but hey there’s kind of patent in 1977 and so there must have been a market for it I’m curious to see if this ever hit the mark I don’t remember and in that timeframe but if you do you can think of a product they actually had some good commercial success back then please share that in the comments below I want to hear about it alright so the second one this is I think it’s even more cheesy I just I found some fun inventions that involve soccer so here it is okay this is a target just you strap it on to your shoe where it actually will help guide and direct you sort of a coaching guide on how to kick the soccer ball and so in this issue with patent was issued whoever would the inventor was believed that this location on the foot is the best place to kick a soccer ball now that could certainly be up for debate but if if that position is set the the the soccer player knows exactly where to hit and on top of that this invention takes it to the next level not only gives you a place where to kick it but when you hit the target right when you kick the soccer ball at the right part of your foot it gives an audible sound which is pretty neat I mean I like the fact that it’s stable to generate that additional feedback give you that utility and so this could certainly be a way that you kind of think outside the box right you know if you’re designing your widget your product maybe it’s a you know a different type of transmission part don’t just get stuck always thinking about you know the metal you know how the shape is gonna be more efficient think outside the box a little bit you know how does that how does that interface with other parts within the engine maybe there’s a way to position that so that it fits better in the whole system right not just weather it if independently functions better in this case not just thinking about the soccer ball and how the soccer ball can be recreated but think about how you can use the soccer ball just like these how you can train to be better at playing soccer ball as an innovation and a way to compete in the market I’m your host JD Houvener of the bowl today’s show I hope you all enjoyed this fun version and feel free to forward this to any friends of yours and give us a call if you have any questions on patents in general we’d love to hear from you our phone number is [Music]
[Music]
you