Looking for Guidance: Manufacturing and Licensing My Fidget-Spinner Ring

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Hello everyone! I’m thrilled to share an independent project I’ve been passionately working on for the last few years. While I’m proud of the progress I’ve made, I believe it’s time to seek some fresh perspectives.

I developed a dual-banded fidget-spinner ring 100% in Grasshopper, designing it to be printable on a DMLS machine. While other fidget-spinner rings need one band to be bent or stretched around the other and then soldered, my rings are melted and formed in place with one around the other. This would have been near impossible using the old lost-wax method, as getting the investment in-between the bands would be very difficult.

Aside from structural benefits, using my method means having intricate designs that would ordinarily be disfigured with the bending or soldering of the bands.

Realizing the uniqueness of my concept, I proceeded to patent it with a utility patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/US11224268B2/), all the while cleaning and refining my code, as well as creating a few different designs. Here is an animation I created to introduce and demonstrate the concept:

I was able to create a couple of early prototypes as a proof of concept:

Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the DMLS machine I used to make these, so I haven’t been able to test my newer designs.

A DMLS machine itself is a very expensive piece of equipment, far beyond my means, which leaves two options: order a company with the machinery to make the rings for me, or license my patent and designs to a jewelry company. The former option will be very expensive and risky; I’ve been quoted over $100 just for a stainless steel/titanium piece, with no guarantee of quality. Ideally, I’d want to print it in precious metals, which is a much higher expense and less manufacturers to choose from, but it could prove to be the most profitable.

I don’t have much experience in marketing, so it’s a little difficult for me to get a clear picture of how to move the merchandise once I get it, so I may need some help on that front. I don’t mind making the effort for this option and getting what I need to make it work, I’d just need a little direction (and some seed money).

Licensing the patent would be great, only I’d need to pitch to a jewelry company that actually has a DMLS machine. I’ve tried contacting DMLS manufacturers to tell me who they’ve sold to, but their representatives have proven ineffectual. I’ve found that jewelry companies don’t often boast about their ownership of a DMLS, and the couple I’ve found only take orders.

I wear my ring whenever I go out, so I know first-hand how spinning it calms anxiety and promotes focus. I’d hate to see all my hard work go to waste, so if anyone has any insights into the business, or any ideas I haven’t considered, I’m all ears.
4_JasonBerger_RingModels_DraftedRings

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I don’t know if this will be helpful but I just read about it so I thought I would mention it. There is a new company in the Netherlands called Manuevo that has bought the assets of the former Shapeways. Apparently the new owners were some of the original founders. It looks like they intend to build the service into something very similar to what Shapeways was. I know Shapeways had its critics and production was slow but they were happy to take small orders and work with micro businesses and individual makers. Manuevo does not currently have the rights to the Shapeways marketplace but they hope to have something like that again eventually.

The current website is still pretty rudimentary, the instant quote only has plastics. But the materials page lists steel and titanium as well as precious metals. It might be worth emailing them to see if you can get some price quotes. https://manuevo.com/

Craftcloud was also advertising pretty aggressively to former Shapeways customers. It’s a hub where you can get quotes from several different manufacturers. Might be worth a look if you haven’t already.

As far as marketing goes, jewelry is pretty competitive. There are already a lot of inexpensive spinner rings out there and you won’t be able to compete on price. The 3D printed aspect might appeal to some people but I don’t think most customers would pay more just for that. If you want to sell the patent rights to a company I think you would have to more clearly demonstrate some more specific value to 3d printed rings over what is already available.

The ability to offer customized designs might be a selling point that sets you apart but custom work has its own challenges. Most people buying something before they see it will expect the option to get a refund if they aren’t happy. If it gets returned you are stuck with jewelry with a random name on it. And rings especially can be hard because even if you can build it to an exact size, the tools for measuring rings and fingers are inexact so you can’t really be sure of the measurements the customer gives you. Also depending on how thick and wide the ring is it still might feel different than the customer is expecting.

If you can find a source to manufacture a small quantity at a reasonable price it would give you a chance to get feedback from potential buyers and see what they like, don’t like, if they find the rings comfortable, how much they would be willing to pay, etc. That will help you think about how to move forward.

Congratulations on your patent and good luck with your project. It’s clear you have already put a lot of thought and effort into this.

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Hello JB,

  • Try trade group [s] for jewelry manufacturing.
  • Try web site [s] focused on the making of jewelry.
  • Consider working with a design / engineering group [ you are their client] to “engineer” an alternative manufacturing process. The result is the same but achieved through a different manufacturing path.

Hopefully so some help.

Thank you,

Andy

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That’s because they don’t exist outside of an R&D context. You can find everyone who has one in research papers presented at The Santa Fe Symposium.

Laser sintered and binder jet machines are currently impractical for jewelry. Parts are many orders of magnitude more expensive than other manufacturing methods, and those parts’ surface finish, anisotropic shrinkage, and grain structure are an order of magnitude worse as well.

I hate to throw cold water on an idea, but I’ve made these before. Precious metals have excellent ductility. I cast two pieces and used a little Pepe arbor press to stretch the inside band to fit the outer band.

People expect jewelry to be sizeable (one of the issues keeping bulk metallic glass off the market). If your sintered fidget ring came to me for sizing, I’d cut through both bands, extract the inner, size them separately, and then press fit the inner band back into place. It’s expensive relative to a normal ring sizing but likely less than your per-part cost with DLMS.

Arbor presses are incredibly commonplace. This is how all men’s two-tone bands are sized without destroying the myriad of intricate patterns out there.

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Eric makes some good points.

It might be helpful for you to identify your goals. If your aim is just to make money this may not be a practical idea (prove me wrong!).

But it sounds like this is also something of a passion project for you. It’s possible to build a market for a niche product but it can be a lot of work for not much financial gain. How much time and money you are in a position to risk is something you would have to figure out.

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I want to thank everyone for their replies, it’s given me a lot of food for thought.

I appreciate the references to the printing companies @JGP, I’ll be sure to get quotes from them. I have already tried using Craftcloud, but found their results to be unreliable when it came to distinguishing between DMLS and SLS, and other printing processes.

@EricM thanks to the reference to the Symposium. I’ve only gone back a few years and found two companies. One I had already known about and they quoted me something outrageous, but I’ll be sure to reach out to the other.

@litwinaa As far as jewelry trade groups and websites are concerned, they might be helpful when it comes to marketing my product, but since my manufacturing process depends on technology and not so much hand-crafting, they wouldn’t be able offer much in producing my rings, which is my highest priority at the moment. I recall having searched on few a websites, DMLS or any other laser processes are never mentioned anywhere.

Believe me, the question of how my rings outshines all others has kept me up many nights. Sure, spinner rings can be made for little or no cost. I’ve seen companies from China selling these fidget trinkets for as little as $10, so commonplace any jeweler with the basic tools of the trade can make them. But if money was no object, would you rather wear something spat out of a jewelry sweat-shop, or something made by the most advanced technology available?

(Now, I may be impartial) but I still feel the concept is worthy of buying into. We are moving into a grand age of technology, where the arrangement of the universe is bending to our whim. And in your hand would be evidence of that movement. We have mastered the art of using computer-directed lasers to melt metal to such a high definition that we now have something that would be impossible without the technology.

Two bands, meant to exist together forever from the moment they were formed, neither one bent nor stretched to conform to the other. Seamless, a landscape with no beginning and no end, the outside band always returns to itself, cyclical and dependably consistent.

By studying and testing the limitations of these machines, I have discovered how the rings should be designed and oriented to get the best results. Thin but strong bands, an awareness of overhangs, consistent definition on all sides. Ideally I’d be there to operate the machine myself, but alas, I’d have to settle for directing technicians on how to get a successful print.

I keep hearing about how there’s so much money being tossed around for art, for luxury jewelry, for things that make us sane. The fidget market alone was valued at 1.0 billion in 2023, the luxury jewelry market 50 times that. To get even a tiny piece of that would be an investment risk worth taking.

As far as sizing is concerned, I could just print another. It would be too much of a bother to break and solder the bands back together; difficulty of soldering aside, it could damage the ornamental design and overall shape of the ring, and I can imagine a user feeling the seams bump every time they spin the band, like constantly tripping on cracks on the sidewalk.

I can easily adjust ring size in my program, and with the push of a button of the “laser-pointing metal-melting kebobulator,’ a new ring with a slightly bigger size is ready. I could even make multiple with slightly different sizes to start with and offer them as an extra benefit, or just grind up the undesirable and reuse the material. In a world where the only limitation is effort and not cost, customer satisfaction will be hard to miss.

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Hello JB,

Sorry that I was not clear enough but there is allot more- wider scope- to some of these websites / groups than you seem to indicate. I was deliberately being cryptic.

It does occur to me that a tool that could be useful for you is to use one of the LLM AI systems. I have found them useful when the prompt is descriptive of XYZ that one is looking for [ i.e.the system uses pattern recognition / statistical - probability math- to compose the response] as opposed to a prompt that is requesting the system to abstract , inference etc. - useless- the “I” in AI in 2024 is closer to a marketing term like “multitasking”. Thus, I doubt these systems would be of much help in material selection for your ring- e.g. 925 silver might work but not 18K Gold- to soft [ price aside for the moment] because this determination requires thoughtfulness / a multi-factorial weighted consideration.

Thank you,

Andy

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The Santa Fe, now The Jewelry Symposium, is the only conference for jewelry manufacturing technology. Every PhD from every major manufacturer from every continent attends. You should come next May. It’s a great learning opportunity, and I’d be happy to introduce you to people working in this area.

Here is why the quote was outrageous. You’re turning precious metal into a proprietary alloy, atomized by a three-story tall specially built machine, to get a powder bed, which…has to be refined between prints. Factor in the first-gen prototype DLMS machine being operated by one of its designers, and you start to get the picture.

Also, the luxury end of the jewelry market isn’t about technology or craftsmanship, it’s about the little blue box. Marketing…over many generations…without a misstep. Does Rolex make a nice watch? Of course. But I wear a Ball because I know it’s better quality at 1/5th the price. That’s a hard sell in the luxury market.

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@litwinaa if I understand you correctly, you’re talking about the new chatbots like Chatgpt and Copilot. I couldn’t agree with you more, their assistance has been vital to my quest. Only sometimes I’ve noticed that it might ignore a condition or two in my prompt, giving me the best they can scrape off the internet. But also, you just can’t get the constructive criticism or guidance a human can provide.

I thought this forum would be good place reach out to my peers who might be or have been in the same boat as me. Sales reps are somewhat knowledgeable, but they’re not great at getting things moving without seed money.

@EricM Thanks for the reference to the Jewelry Symposium, I hope to be able to make it; sounds like it’ll have the sort of people I’d like to rub elbows with.

When I say outrageous, I mean outrageous compared to other quotes I got for a precious-metal print. The rep I spoke to was adamant about getting paid a large retainer just to have his team “assess my models,” and gave me a quote 10-20% more expensive than other precious-metal prints.

I do have a little experience working on the machine, so I know that they’re designed to be easily maintained and repaired by trained technicians, not its inventor. If the rings were made by the machine’s designer and I can name them to inflate the price of my rings, then I might be able to justify the extra cost. But that was not a selling point the rep made.

As far as polishing each ring is concerned, I imagine it takes less expertise and cost to polish a ring than to resize it. And having different sizes available at the time of delivery will mean the customer wouldn’t have to wait for a resizing.

One of the goals of my project was to remove the need for an expert craftsman to finely carve or adjust any one ring for too long. Technicians will certainly be needed, but most of the work will be done automatically by computerized machinery.

More rings can be made to custom designs and fits, instead of mass producing identical rings. The way I see it, a valuable, ideal accessory should be tailored to a buyer’s personal identity and predilection, made from conception to have significance to them. Custom etched engravings are nice, but it feels like an afterthought when compared to my rings.

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Hello JB,

Yes, I think you are tracking with what I had posted. If your prompt details the main specifications you are looking for in a new rain jacket or poncho- can be helpful to quite helpful. A prompt that requires thoughtfulness to formulate a response not helpful to minimally helpful as of Sept. 2024 in my experience. However, I do not know the “age” of the systems I have tried. I do think that in a way these systems become anew form direct intervention by those developing them and by the questions the system is asked their response and then the persons response back etc. > ongoing “training” of the model.

I wanted to find the following fourm link for you that is from a jeweler that knows allot about these systems:

Thank you,

Andy

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I used to make music and I’d spend days working on a sound that lasted a few seconds - a whole bunch of signal manipulation and morphing to create this perfect element in the track and you know what - nobody listening to that track even cared about that sound; they cared about the overall feel of the song.

Most people don’t really care how something was made - they only care about the end result. In music and CAD I’ve tried to avoid using the design process to justify the design - the complexity of my grasshopper script or the clever bit of surfacing I did means nothing to the person who’s going to see that item on the shelf - they just care about how it works, looks and feels.

Good luck with the whole project.

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Have you done any research into the way jewelers currently address the problems you mention? Is there a real demand for new and better solutions?

Not to belabor the point but there are already ways to perform sizings on seamless design rings that will not leave a bump or visual trace. In situations where a sizing really can’t be done a new ring in the correct size can usually be recreated. A half decent jeweler is capable of creating a ring of precise size. You might be able to get a few more decimal places of accuracy but in practice that won’t really matter because fingers are organic and will naturally fluctuate in size over the course of a day. And digital files that can easily be adjusted are already being turned into jewelry by printing waxes and casting them.

I think some of the limitations you perceive in existing production methods are not really so limiting. I would suggest you learn more about existing solutions if you are going to contrast them with your methods as a selling point.

The other problem with focusing on production technique over design is that new technology could come along and potentially make your marketing angle obsolete. I have been reading about a start up called Fluent Metals that is working on printing directly from wire. Who knows if or when they will be successful but other companies are working on the same technology so it seems likely it or something similar will eventually be a game changer for the whole industry.

I am not trying to discourage you from pursuing this but I would encourage you to also focus on the actual designs as much as manufacturing. Try test marketing some renderings or make some non-spinning prototypes to get feedback. Start working on identifying who you will be selling to and how you will reach them. These are as crucial to success as working out the logistics of manufacturing.

It’s worth repeating, the jewelry market is big but competition is fierce.

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Nice project, very ambitious, but I see many problems:

  • Spinning rings exist already and no end client cares about the production. The most famous are from Wellendorff and I strongly doubt someone can produce finer quality than them.
  • A good jeweler is absolutely capable of bending things without destroying hte surface quality. You won’t be able to see if something has been welded or not. Especially not in platinum.
  • SLM does not provide homogeneous material within an alloy, so for jewelry production in any alloy (means everything except titan) cannot be declared as gold, silver or platinum alloy. You’ll sell officially a yellow metal alloy and not gold.
  • I’ve had many (really many) clients coming up with the same idea and strangely, every single one wanted to patent his or her idea. Better get used to the fact that in jewelry business, it’s near to impossible to patent any design or production technique. Concurrence simply changes one parameter and you’re done. The only save way is to be very quick with marketing.

depends on the surface quality you’re looking for. Polisher is a job by itself and for good reasons. But to be clear, SLM produced stuff is extremely difficult to polish without making big waves or removing 3/10mm, where in casting production you remove 5/100mm which provides a great surface quality. As you envision a larger production, resizing wont be any problem, you simply don’t resize.

My enterprise does jewelry concepts for well known brands and creative people like you. For series and unique pieces. However, in this case I have to say that for spinning rings, the complete market from extremely cheap to extremely expensive and everything in between is saturated and it will be extremely difficult to concurrence with brands making these for generations. Don’t put too much money into this project.

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Yeah, I’m not sure what part of your process you could patent. Also, copyrighting jewelry is not a thing. Copy/paste is fairly universal. Luxury brands protect their IP through trademark dress.

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In the first post the O.P. declares that he has patented his process and gives a link to the patent.

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Which is practically the same as throwing your money into a toilet and flush twice.

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ok, to be a bit more constructive than just about whats not working in my previous post:

drop the patent thing. Noone will licence this for several technical reasons. one being your bearing having a very poor surface quality, it will always rotate rather bad than longtime. you have no way of polishing the balls for better rotation other than excessive use or compression. the entire fun of fidget spinners (longer rotation => better) is gone for nerds. Having it printed in one piece is a rather mediocre selling point for non-nerds. Another being that everyone having a SLM machine has printed moving parts in one as it’s the selling point for SLM compared to classic casting. So everyone having a SLM won’t be very impressed by your patented idea. And even if, they only change an angle and then it’s their design. Think of another way of producing and don’t fixate yourself on just that technique.

here’s the constructive part:
What you really need is a unique selling point. If you insist on your idea of a SLM printed bearing, maybe make it that the moving bearings are visible across some complex (organic) structure that would be near impossible to make by hand or casting. Then your technique becomes interesting.

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While perhaps self-evident to most as to what aspect of this topic / tread you are indicating, oh well; not so for me. Based on my limited [but descent understanding - one cannot get an adequate understanding of IP protection otherwise] that a design patent is helpful [ constraining for the moment to the USA]. It does seem to afford one a bases for defending one’s IP rights in the circumstance of apparent IP infringement. Internationally, is another matter. [Appreciated that you obtained a different class of patent but irrespective, companies have adequate legal departments that as needed , have attorneys that specialize in IP law for a good reason.] I would say, a topic unto itself as to what strategy one might use. The Madrid Protocol being one.

To establish Trade Dress and that the company’s Trade Dress is being infringed upon has legal tests that are rigorous that need to be met to win. I think a good recent case to look at is via the link below and one can find related material to it.

Thank you,

Andy

p.s. In this case it appears that the design patent[s] were from many moons ago and indeed their term has expired. But still of use in that it shows the establishment of the design[s] as distinctive long ago and additive to all of the long standing hard work that has been done. I would imagine that there would be concurrence that when one / a group works hard they have earned a benefit form that effort / creativity / ingenuity etc. and to defend such.

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The OP’s patent is a utility patent, not a design patent. Very different. A utility patent in general does not protect appearance.

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Hello David,

ok thank you. I did appreciate this, indeed, if I have it correctly, design patent can be viewed to a good extent as the compliment in that it specifically is about design rather than utility - e.g. the design of the clasp rather than their is something novel that makes the clasp uniquely secure as a clasp. So sorry, I was not clear that my comment was made within a specific context as I was hoping to indicate and by stating: [Appreciated that you obtained a different class of patent… and perhaps of a small help.The whole “patent world” certainly does seem to be changing. So any insight - thank you. Appreciated.

As Rhino users we can draw our own diagrams for patent submission or at least for review by an IP lawyer and draft person for refinement as needed- but the specifics of what exactly is “between one’s ears” can be drawn for their review; I think irrespective of the class of patent. This is just another great part of Rhino.

Thank you,

Andy