Tucsonan lands deal for two inventions

Photos by Sarah Prall / Staff
Lisa Lloyd of Tucson, co-founder of the Inventors Association of Arizona, shows her Pop Tops, which she invented. They are barrettes that have interchangeable covers. She sold her design to Goody Products Inc.

Soft Claws, such as this one, work the same as a butterfly hair clip.

After working for months to get her latest inventions licensed with a major company, Tucson inventor Lisa Lloyd has landed two contracts with Goody Products Inc.

Lloyd, who licensed her French Twister hair accessory with Scunci in 1995, received licensing agreements last week for her two newest products: Pop Tops, which are barrettes that have removable, interchangeable covers; and Soft Claws, springless hair clips.

Lloyd would not divulge the amount of the contracts, but said they will eventually be worth more than $1 million each.

Pop Tops should be on shelves by June in grocery, drug and discount stores, and Soft Claws will follow, Lloyd said.

Scunci has sold more than 5 million French Twisters. Barring unforeseeable declines in the market, that contract will also be worth more than $1 million, Lloyd said.

In addition to the licensing agreements, Goody is negotiating with Lloyd to employ her as a consultant, said Lee Levenson, vice president of marketing.

"She has a track record of having produced some winning items," Levenson said. "They were great products that obviously had a lot of thought put into them."

The exclusive licensing agreements consist of an up-front payment, a guaranteed minimum amount per year (based on projected sales, the minimum averages 5 percent), and a royalty, or fair percentage.

Lloyd, 32, has utility patents on all three products and an additional design patent on the French Twister.

"We look for unique items that fill a niche and if they're already patented or patent pending, all the better," Levenson said.

The licensing agreements give Goody rights to the products for the life of the patents. Patents are issued for 20 years from the date of application, Lloyd said.

Lloyd said said she spent months trying to sell the products to Scunci, which is a subsidiary of L&N Sales and Marketing, and Goody, an offshoot of Newell Rubbermaid Inc. Goody bit first, she said.

Lloyd sold the rights to her inventions rather than manufacturing and marketing them herself because she had already been down that road with the French Twister and Pop Tops, she said.

Name-brand products consume a huge portion of shelf space in discount and department stores, so it is difficult to get a new item into places like Wal-Mart and Target, Lloyd said.

Goody, which was founded in 1907, has redesigned its packaging and will roll out a new Web site, www.lookingoody.com by the end of this week, Levenson said.

It is extremely unusual for an inventor to obtain a licensing agreement for a product, said Jack Landen, president of the United Inventors Association.

"The conventional wisdom is that less than 5 percent - probably something like 2 percent - of patents that are issued ever culminate in a license," he said. "The odds are very low."

That is because most inventors are creators, not marketers, Landen said. Lloyd has been involved in sales since she was 16 and worked in a clothing store.

"She's a marketer first and then she's creative second. That combination will work," Lander said.

When she is not developing and marketing her own inventions, Lloyd is helping others through her Invention University. She is also president of the Inventors Association of Arizona, which she founded along with her mother, Susan Moore.

She is now working on a new air hairbrush and a new kind of gift wrap that is another collaboration with her mom.

Moore helped Lloyd through the difficult process of selling the French Twister, and she gets part of the proceeds.

"I got it marketed, the first one, so we share that together," she said. "This one's all Lisa."

* Contact Business reporter Tiffany Kjos at (520) 434-4083 or at tkjos@azstarnet.com