The story of the StormBoard - April 2008

A three-part tale of product development and exploitation as explained by David Copp of Dummett Copp Patent Attorneys

OUR story starts on Felixstowe beach; that bit of bleak shingle overlooked by a Martello tower. Ron and his mates were out there in their wet suits, showing off their kite surfing skills to the admiring spectators. Ron was experimenting with an attachment to his board which he had put together at home, in secret as he was not sure whether it would work or whether he would be laughed at.

What he had done was to fit a little propeller on the bottom of the board and coupled it to what was effectively an elastic band. He hoped that when he was surfing at full speed, the propeller would turn and wind up the elastic band, to store some energy and then, when he wanted to execute a really daring manoeuvre, like a big jump, he could operate a foot button which would release the stored energy to drive the propeller and that would give that extra bit of thrust to enable him to be airborne higher and longer than his mates.

It took quite a lot of experimentation to make this actually work, but on this Sunday, conditions were perfect and, boy, did he take off ! "How did you do that" they said when they all gathered back on the beach, and Ron showed them. "That's cool! Can you make one for me? I bet everybody will want ne," said one of the other surfers.

Luckily, Ron knew a patent attorney who had told him in the past about the dangers of disclosing an idea without protecting it, so he swore them all to secrecy before putting his board back in its protective bag, so that none of the spectators could see what he had made.

Ron knew that he had something which would work and perform. It would probably need some further development, but the idea was now proven, and he wanted to make some money out of this idea. So he knew the next step was to go and talk to somebody who could help him protect it.

Read the second instalment of this story here.

Originally published in the Suffolk Business Magazine in April 2008