A closer look
Catherine Hettinger filed a patent for a spinning toy back in 1993, but she tragically let the patent officially expire in 2005 simply because she couldn't afford the paltry four-hundred-dollar renewal fee. Over a decade later, essentially the exact same basic mechanical concept exploded into a multi-million dollar global fad, flooding every gas station checkout counter and middle school classroom with cheap, bearing-loaded plastic gadgets. Because the intellectual property rights had safely lapsed into the public domain, thousands of random overseas manufacturers ruthlessly cashed in on the viral craze while the original inventor received absolutely nothing. It serves as a perfectly cynical cautionary tale about the sheer unpredictability of viral consumerism and how the modern economy loves to passionately reward the copycats while entirely ignoring the pioneer
