"Several publications credited Catherine Hettinger as the inventor of the fidget spinner. She isn’t."

BB:

Over the last week or so, a wave of media outlets, including the Guardian and the New York Times, have declared that Catherine Hettinger, a woman living in the Orlando area, is the inventor of the fidget spinner. Hettinger isn’t involved in any of the companies that are making the popular toys and told a reporter at the Guardian that she is having financial difficulties. The press coverage quickly congealed around an interpretation summed up expertly by the headline writers at the New York Post: “Woman Who Invented Fidget Spinner Isn’t Getting Squat.”

...

Aside from the Wikipedia page, Hettinger acknowledged that there is no evidence of a direct connection between her own plastic disc and the fidget spinners that are popular today. She said she doesn’t have an opinion on whether her patent would apply to them. “You’re going to have to call a patent attorney. This is way beyond me,” she said.

...

“Let’s just say that I’m claimed to be the inventor,” she said. “You know, ‘Wikipedia claims,’ or something like that.”

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