How Fidget Spinners Were Invented

Catherine Hettinger, a chemical engineer by training, was initially credited by some news stories to have been the inventor of the fidget spinner, including by media outlets such as The Guardian, The New York Times, and the New York Post. Hettinger filed a patent application for a "spinning toy" in 1993. Hettinger told the New York Post that the idea for the toy came as she saw young boys throwing rocks at police officers in Israel. In response to seeing that, she wanted to develop a soothing toy that could help children release pent-up energy and "promote peace." However, she told The Guardian that the origins of the fidget spinner came when she was suffering from myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that causes muscle weakness. Unable to play with her daughter, she started "throwing things together with newspaper and tape" in an effort to entertain her. It soon gained moderate popularity as she began small-scale manufacturing from her home and sold her invention around art fairs in Florida.

Hettinger applied for a patent on May 28, 1993 for a one-piece round device made of "soft plastic" with a "dome" (center indentation for finger placement) and a "skirt" (circular outward extension), then pitched her spinner device to toy manufacturers. However, Hasbro declined to pursue a deal after market-testing it. Hettinger let her spinning toy patent lapse in 2005; if it had been maintained, it would have expired in 2014.

A Bloomberg News article, however, disputes the claim that Hettinger is the original inventor of the fidget spinner, citing two patent lawyers who saw little resemblance between the fidget spinners which rose to popularity in 2017 and Hettinger's spinning toy, as described in the patent. Hettinger acknowledges there is no direct connection between her own spinning toy and fidget spinners in their current form and does not make any claims on being the inventor of the product, telling Bloomberg News: "Let's just say I'm claimed to be the inventor. You know, 'Wikipedia claims', or something like that."

Although the patent status of the various fidget spinners currently on the market is unclear, in an interview appearing on May 4, 2017 on NPR, Scott McCoskery describes how he invented a metal spinning device in 2014 to cope with his own fidgeting in IT meetings and conference calls. In response to requests from an online community, he began selling the device he called the Torqbar online. Shortly thereafter, others began making and selling their own versions, and in 2016 he partnered with a friend to file for a provisional patent.