October 15, 2023 • 28 mins
Joe Farco, an intellectual property attorney and the inventor of the building block system called "Connecto". The Connecto™ System originated in the 1980s when the inventor, as a young boy, sought a better way to play with action figures, building blocks, and bendable toys.
The journey began with Farco-Proto 1, a prototype that used patent-protected technology but was inefficient and wasted materials. It confirmed that there was a gap in the market for a solution. Farco-Proto 2 attempted to optimize movement but faced challenges with set screws. Finally, on November 16, 2021, Farco-Proto 3, now known as the Farco Connecto™, was born. This prototype successfully combined elements of various toy types, using innovative engineering and injection molding. It is a U.S. and foreign patent-pending technology designed to bridge the gap between action figures, building blocks, and bendable toys. https://www.farcotoyco.com/
Watch the full video interview HERE
--------------------------------------------
About Got Invention Show:
Welcome to the Got Invention Show!
Listen to inventors interviews sharing their invention story to the world!
Are you patent pending?
Do you have a prototype to show and demonstrate?
Are you looking to earn royalties from your invention?
Are you looking for a manufacturer?
Do you want to raise money or find an investor?
Do you want to sell your invention?
Learn from other inventors or let’s see and hear about your big invention idea!
Show & tell us about your invention, have your very own video interview to be proud of!
Your video can be used to: Post to your social media add on your website Send to bloggers & editors Pitch to licensees or investors
Listen to inventor interviews or sign up: https://gotinventionshow.com
Your Host of Got Invention Show, Inventor Expert, Founder of Inventor Smart and National Inventor Club, Brian Fried. Brian is the host of Got Invention Radio, with interviews of high profile guests including the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Lori Greiner from ABC's Shark Tank, & over 150 individual interviews. https://gotinvention.com Brian connects and guides inventors to earn royalties from their inventions to licensees and brand properties looking for new ideas and intellectual property to expand existing or add to new product lines.
Inventor Smart: https://inventorsmart.com Host Inventor Expert and Mentor Brian Fried: https://brianfried.com
The journey began with Farco-Proto 1, a prototype that used patent-protected technology but was inefficient and wasted materials. It confirmed that there was a gap in the market for a solution. Farco-Proto 2 attempted to optimize movement but faced challenges with set screws. Finally, on November 16, 2021, Farco-Proto 3, now known as the Farco Connecto™, was born. This prototype successfully combined elements of various toy types, using innovative engineering and injection molding. It is a U.S. and foreign patent-pending technology designed to bridge the gap between action figures, building blocks, and bendable toys. https://www.farcotoyco.com/
Watch the full video interview HERE
--------------------------------------------
About Got Invention Show:
Welcome to the Got Invention Show!
Listen to inventors interviews sharing their invention story to the world!
Are you patent pending?
Do you have a prototype to show and demonstrate?
Are you looking to earn royalties from your invention?
Are you looking for a manufacturer?
Do you want to raise money or find an investor?
Do you want to sell your invention?
Learn from other inventors or let’s see and hear about your big invention idea!
Show & tell us about your invention, have your very own video interview to be proud of!
Your video can be used to: Post to your social media add on your website Send to bloggers & editors Pitch to licensees or investors
Listen to inventor interviews or sign up: https://gotinventionshow.com
Your Host of Got Invention Show, Inventor Expert, Founder of Inventor Smart and National Inventor Club, Brian Fried. Brian is the host of Got Invention Radio, with interviews of high profile guests including the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Lori Greiner from ABC's Shark Tank, & over 150 individual interviews. https://gotinvention.com Brian connects and guides inventors to earn royalties from their inventions to licensees and brand properties looking for new ideas and intellectual property to expand existing or add to new product lines.
Inventor Smart: https://inventorsmart.com Host Inventor Expert and Mentor Brian Fried: https://brianfried.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Welcome to the Got Invention Show.I'm your host Brian Freed, and today
our guest is Joe Farco. Heis an intellectual property attorney and he's also
an inventor. Welcome to the show, Joe, Thank you Brian, thanks
for having me. Joe. Interestingguy, I've known you for a long
time. Why don't you start offby telling the audience who you are and
(00:36):
where you're from. Sure? So, my name is Joe Farco, originally
born and raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. I live out in
Long Island, New York, andI practice intellectual property. I'm an engineer
by trade, also have some sciencedegrees in pharmaceutical chemistry, and I am
an inventor. That is a seriousbackground. With all the engine hearing that
(01:00):
you've done. What did that kindof transpire into as soon as you graduated
college and kind of moved through graduateschool. Well, I mean engineering school
was sort of the area where Igot to hone in on my creative abilities.
It was basically giving someone who hasa knack for painting the paint brushes
(01:21):
and the palette needed to make whatwas coming into their minds. So engineering
gave me that subset but when Ilearned in my engineering degree studies that there
is a way to protect your creations, I said, my gosh, that
sounds really really awesome. I wantto do that for other people. And
that launched me into law school whereI studied and now practice oh gosh,
(01:42):
almost two decades and is a intellectualproperty and patent lawyer. You've had a
chance to see people, innovative,creative people that are coming through your doors,
and now you have put the inventorcap on. From your experience of
being the intellectual property the patent attorney, what has been kind of what you've
(02:04):
seen out there with new inventions andwhat the opportunity might be for innovators and
creators out there. In the panattorney role, I've seen some really brilliant
ideas, really great things that peoplehave made, you know, and I
command anybody who brings things to methat the fortitude they have to pursue their
dream that's always very important. Ithink that was always a big thing in
(02:28):
my life growing up. So seeingsomeone do that and being a part of
that at you know, working withthem to help try and get that sort
of protection for them, is itreally is an honor. So I've only
seen real I've been very blessed tobe part of that, these creations that
people have come up with over theyears. So you got that itch,
You're like, you know what,I'm seeing all these things, watching everybody.
(02:51):
But you know what, you havethat mindset because that's what you did
growing up and obviously what you wentto school for. So now you took
your creativity and you came up withan invention. So, Joe, what
was the problem that you had forthis idea that we're gonna show in a
moment? Sure, Brian, Well, yeah, I like the word itch
(03:13):
that you use because mine happened totake multiple decades. So I mentioned I
grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,So I lived in an apartment. So,
and it was a great decade theeighties when I was growing up as
a young boy, and as youcan imagine, it wasn't too many places
to run around in the urban settingin which I found myself. So I
did make great company with the toysthat I had of that age. But
(03:37):
you know what I had found wasand in fact, if you don't mind,
I mean I you know, forexample, some of these things that
I was privy to as a child, I had action figures, and I
also had these bendable toys. Somepeople from you know, folks my age
and our age may remember these,so you could bend them up and down,
usually had rubber on them, andof course we had the building block,
(03:59):
which there were several at that timethat were a repute, and notably
the Lego block. What happened withme is that I used to try and
make all of these toys play together, and I couldn't do it. It
seemed as almost like the problem existedbecause of the way people designed them.
So people who made bendy toys didn'tmake them work at action figures. And
(04:24):
if you try, anybody try to, if you try using your lego guys
to fight, you know, itended up like a big mess on the
floor. So I was stuck withthis problem, and to be honest,
I use the word itch. Itpersisted my whole life. I sat in
the back of my head and likea lot of people that I've seen on
the PA Attorney side, it's justthey never gave up on that dream.
(04:46):
And I was telling myself I couldmake this better. But I realized that,
you know, even when I wasyoung, I had to go to
engineering school to study and then learnmore about these different areas of practice.
And obviously too I sat around thinkingmaybe so someone else will solve this,
but it just never happened until now. So you had this problem, you
had this itch. I call itthings that annoy me that I invent things
(05:10):
from. So what did you donow, Joe? So you had this
issue? What did you do first? What was the kind of way to
just get started? Because you've seenother people do it, now it's your
turn. I'll call a very educatedtrial and error process. I said to
myself as a child, I wantedto make my toy do whatever I wanted.
(05:33):
In other words, I wanted tokind of move and do whatever I
desired. But I did like customization. That's where like the building blocks came
to play. So I said tomyself, how can I make something that
could move which anyway I want,but can work with a building block.
So I had come with a firstprototype that sort of took that you know,
that bendy toy I showed you andtrying to use a rubber coated bendable
(06:00):
linkage which was like a vendable wire, and then have it interact with building
blocks was my first attempt at tryingto do this. Uh you know what,
so right now it's stiff. Youonly have it one way to kind
of make it work. So thosewere your parameters. You needed it to
be more flexible. You wanted yourwhatever it is that you were creating.
(06:21):
And you know, Joe, Iwould expect maybe you might say it's your
kids that you were doing this for, but it sounds like it was for
you. It was it was something. But I've noticed that a lot of
my you know, my clients thatthey it wasn't a matter of whether someone
else told them they wanted. Itwas something that you know, a person
(06:42):
would come to me and say,this is a problem that they saw and
they felt resolute and trying to solve. And that's kind of how it was.
In fact, Brian, you'd beI actually would push back and say,
you know, kids say really don'teven know there. They were born
under this regime where if you havean action figure, you play your action
figures over there. If you haveBendy toys are almost not existent now,
and you know, and the likeLego basically licenses a lot of its properties
(07:05):
and essentially will you know, youknow, what their sets can do.
But they're not like, no one'slooking for compatibilities. Everyone's staying in their
lane. I want to kind ofbring it all together. Can you show
us a demo, Joe, showus how it works? Certainly right now,
what's out there are components like likethings. I put this on one
(07:25):
of my examples here, and youknow, you could see here the pieces
are familiar, and they bend andthey move, but of course, like
at you know, at a certainpoint they they can't move any which way
you want. And then also justfrom the appearance of it, you know,
while you know everyone will say,hey, this looks like a cool,
you know, building block, towith this, it's difficult to look
(07:47):
at this and say, wow,that's it looks like an action figure.
But this is what everybody's come toexpect from building. With today's building blocks,
it'll look like this segmented joint.I mean, who's do your legs
have? You know? All theselittle pieces in between that that have these
knobs in between. No, it'sthat that's a function of the limitation of
(08:09):
these pieces. If they didn't havethese little knobs, you know, they
couldn't move and you're stuck and bythe way, if you if you if
you twisted the wrong way, ohyeah, if you bend it the wrong
way, it's snaps. So youknow, a child playing rigorously with a
building block, a pure building blocktoy, you know, want to make
an arm like this. If yougo to go to move it, you
(08:31):
know, they snap apart. Sothe technology I have is what I call
an action block or posable building blockunit. You could see here these pieces
are compatible with known building blocks Ie. Lego and others. And but
but they are uh they exist arecoupled to a posable metal wire. So
(08:56):
what happens is while they're both compatible, well, they also provide a movement
and capability that was never before imagined. Now what happens is you can take
that building block I just showed youa moment ago, and you can put
it onto your connectel like so andreally in a new building way where you're
not just building one on top ofthe other or connecting ball and socket joints
(09:18):
as the case may be. Youthread these on like so goodmand and now
whila. This This is called theThis particular toy is called Persona. Persono
is a fully bendable action figure.But he's buildable from building blocks, and
(09:45):
in addition to that, he canbe maneuvered into various different poses and he
will hold those positions for you asyou see fit. Why is irreproducible with
known building blocks? Particularly here ifyou want to look at the spine,
(10:05):
it is just not capable of beingdone. But the connecto provides that in
this particular connecto building block unit Icall the links. Here's what it looks
like outside of the building block system. So there's a couple of virtues of
this we'll go into in a moment, but this is just one embodiment showing
(10:26):
you how you use this particular toolto build in a way that was heretofore
unimaginable and gives you a new versatilitythat you couldn't have before. Congratulations,
Joe, well accomplished. So let'stalk about your journey now as an inventor.
(10:46):
So you came up with this solutionto what you wanted to make as
bendable, flexible type of figures,and what did you figure out? Because
you have the background and engineering,so you might have an advantage or a
head start to a lot of usthat maybe might not have figured that out
or figured out what to do first, So was it kind of easy for
(11:09):
you in the beginning. No.I think for any one of us who
seeks a solved problem, the answeryou find is not the final one.
And I say that really as abit of wisdom I learned along the way
in my life is that despite myknowledge, my expertise as an engineer,
having studied robots and manufacturing, youstill need to ask questions. I am
(11:31):
not a manufacturer, so you stillneed to get input. You need to
ask questions, talk to people,seek out resources from those people who provide
it. Groups like you know,people like yourself, anyone who's basically has
access to people that can give youfurther information. More information is always better
than saying, yeah, I gotit, let's just go forward. That
(11:52):
decision is something I've learned from,you know, working with my clients and
seeing others that I don't want todo. I always challenge myself to ask
a question, trying to find thebest way, and sometimes you make mistakes.
It's part of learning. There's nothere's no book for your your invention,
your ideas, there's no story writtenfor that. You're the You're the
author of it. So sometimes youneed some editing. Makes sense. Now,
(12:15):
you as the inventor and having tofile some sort of intellectual property,
what did you do? Did youfirst work on your invention, get it
to a certain point, and thenprotect it or did you protect it first?
What did uh inventor do with thepatent attorney? Well, okay,
(12:37):
so in my situation, sometimes,uh, you know, and this is
in legal advice, but sometimes youhave an idea that you can file right
away upon and you you go forwardwith it because the way to make it
is probably well understood. The wayin which it operates can be deduced from
looking at it, so in whichcase you could file for for the IP
(12:58):
right away. I did something thatwas kind of old school. I actually
want to improve to myself that Icould make it and that I had a
path for mass production of it first. And why is that my particular component
is different for a lot of people. They may hear of injection mold terminology.
My product is an insert mold technology. This is all disclosed in the
(13:20):
patent, which I made sure toinclude, which is a good idea for
anyone to do, but I hadto. I want to make sure I
figured out a way to do this. Repeatably, because a lot of times
an inventor will come to me mentionthis great design, and I asked them,
I said, you know, howhow much is it going to cost
to makes that thing? And thenall of a sudden, I feel you
(13:41):
could see in their eyes the sunturned into into gloom because it's they didn't
think that that far ahead, andmyself, I wanted, you know,
I my advantage was having that experienceand having the background I was able to
sell. I knew I had tofigure this out first, because a lot
of times a good idea is notyou know, an invention and innovation are
two different things, and the innovationis what everyone wants to try and get
(14:05):
to. But the inventions are obviouslynecessary component of that. But if you
know your products can't be made viably, it could be difficult for it to
have a future. But that's notto say it can't be done for me.
I wanted to prove that to myselffirst, and once I had proved
it, then you know, zipI followed right away, and you know,
(14:26):
I did all the usual steps gettingfar you know, floul and for
foreign protection and so forth. Okay, it took care of the engineering prototyping,
getting some quotes, figuring out whereyou were going to be with what
it's going to look like to actuallycommercialize your invention. And then you filed
and now you're patent pending or patentedat this point patter and pending. At
(14:48):
the moment your patent pending, you'reon showing how the prototype or it looks
almost like the real thing. Tome, it looks like you did a
very nice job with the with theprototype. And now what's next for you,
Joe? What are you up to? So the next part is finalizing
the parts that they are in theirfinal incarnation. So it is true the
(15:11):
pieces that we're shown on this showare pro type material. But the next
stage is to start getting the finalversions made, sending them out to folks
who could help to disseminate this newtechnology which has been its own experience.
I could talk about that at yourleisure, but it's certainly for in my
(15:33):
area. Which I implore every inventorto do is really really know your market
and not just know it. Whothe customer is, Know who the distributors
are, Know who the marketing peopleare. Know who are the heralds of
the idea, Those voices in thoseears are critical to know because you could
(15:54):
solve a problem in quiet on anisland, but no one will ever know
about it your idea. If youreally want to solve the problem for the
public, you got to get thepublic to know. And I've you know,
that's been a huge lesson for meto learn. So that's that's really
been my that's my next step onthis. So while you know, certainly
we're going to keep innovating, butyeah, the major part of this is
(16:14):
getting that idea out to the masses. You were probably at that fork in
the road, or you still mightbe that in that fork in the road.
And it's a decision that many inventorsare faced with. Is this something
is Farco toyco and the everything thatyou kind of put together. Is this
something that you're going to go allin on and manufacture and start your own
(16:36):
business and put it out there forsale, or are you going to work
with your intellectual property and the assetsthat you've built and look for a potential
licensing deal where you would go toa company that's already in the business,
most likely a toy company. Theywould manufacture it for you, they would
distribute it and you would earn aroyalty from it. So where are you
(17:00):
know, at that fork in theroad. But if you remember the old
Looney Tunes cartoons where the they havetwo train tracks and the cartoon character has
their foot on two different moving piecesgoing in opposite directions on the train,
the struggle cartoon character, that's kindof like what I'm doing, So if
you could imagine that. But I'mcertainly always open to it. What I've
found is, and this may facea lot of the viewers as well,
(17:23):
you have this great idea and youwant to license it, but you're you
know, the the company is lookingat you and saying, well, what
type of viability does it have?And certainly the more they have to put
into getting the idea up to acertain level, it could decrease what royalty
you believe you're entitled to. Andsometimes there's a reality play there. I
tell clients all the time, ifyou're not going to you know, if
(17:45):
you don't have too much skin inthe game, you can't ask much more
from them either. It's it's it'sa you know, it's kind of a
give and take. But what Ifound from my ability to obtain resources,
uh, third party resources and factto try and do this is that I
I do want to pursue it.I think that I've been able to get
(18:06):
the manufacturing to the point where itcan be done repeatably and in in a
way that that could be financially beneficial. And but but I think also I
also have many different partnerships with folkswho helped me make like for example,
the blocks that you saw that wereused that persona one of my clients uses
them. But and this is tosay too for viewers as well, tap
(18:30):
into as many channels as you can, as many resources that are offered.
Again, like like folks like you, Brian, having people meet up with
people figuring out what connections can bemade. You're you know, the the
reality of your idea is not thatfar off. It's just a matter of
doing the legwork. So I usuallytell people the amount of rigor intellectual rigor
that went into solving the problem.You have to do equal, if not
(18:52):
more of that to help bring itto life. And if people go in
that way, if you make thattype of investment, you know, I
think it helps you at least tryit out. And if you know,
I'm not selling people waste your money. I mean, if if it's really
cost prohibitive, and you might learnthat too, you might have to settle
for licensing it because it may bejust too outside of your you know,
(19:14):
the the financial reality that you oryour family may be involved. Speaking of
connections, you were talking about acouple I think it was about a week
or so ago, you were talkingabout going to the Toy Fair. Tell
us about that kind of experience whenyou have gone through all this, Joe,
and then there's an industry trade showthat you have a chance to go
(19:37):
to. What was that experience likefor you as an inventor for what I've
been trying to do, is verygratifying. I go into the Toy Fair.
I wasn't in a big I wasn'tin a big space. I was
really I was at a corner ofa table, which again a colleagues that
I had allowed me to take upsome of that space. We had a
banner, and I, you know, I went all in. I was
very passionate presenting it, and wegot really wonderful feedback. I you know,
(20:00):
people saw the virtues, and alot of people thought it was like
magic. At some point they didn'tand in some were afraid to touch my
product because they thought it was gonnafall apart. But then when they moved
it, or when like one ofthem dropped on the floor and it didn't
smash, they thought that I didsomething, I rigged it or something.
But I said not, you know, that's just just that's what that's the
invention inside there. There was otherthings too, I mean, for you
(20:22):
know, for example, we youknow this person, you know, the
PERSONO was one embodiment. This wascool princessor this thing was something that when
I came up with the idea tosolve action figures, I had never had
in mind to make bendable building blockjewelry. This type of thing was really
frankly, this was just something that's, you know, kind of spur of
(20:45):
the moment. But then when Istarted realizing and this was I worked on
this with my my older son.We started seeing possibilities with CONNECTO that you
wouldn't otherwise have right now, andI and I and that was another thing
about the two wayfare that really wasreally resonated with me. Folks really enjoyed
the fact that I made a piecethat can act as like sort of a
(21:07):
bendable scaffold to make things look likethey're floating. I mean I have right
here this is a a opposed opposedperson flying in a in a hot air
balloon. So you know, whenwhen you when you want to put that
on your countertop or whatever, itdoes something that you can't otherwise do.
(21:30):
Right now, I mean, here'sjust another one too. These mini figures
for example, really big staple rightnow in the building block community. But
now you can make a scene whereyou have like you know, this happens
to be Spider Man again, thisis Lego into Legos property, Marble and
Disney. But you can make youknow, Spider Man shoot web. You
can make him fly and hold themposition in space. So I was seeing
(21:52):
things that we can use with thistechnology that had not you know, had
not been really thought of. Iwasn't originally thinking of. So sometimes the
idea the problem you started to solveand do solve, then you figure out
you can solve so many other differentproblems using the same thing. And it
just requires a person to constantly,like I said, constantly be innovating,
(22:17):
constantly, be thinking outside the box, because it's it's when it's when we
stop that creative process then you're you'rekind of just left and sometimes you do
and and me though I can't help, but I love doing it. It's
it's a wonderful thing and I andI enjoy seeing and I always tell my
(22:37):
you know, my clients, tonever stop thinking, never stop trying to
push those boundaries. That's great show. Look, this show was about you,
and you're constantly kind of thinking abouthow you have gone through not only
yourself but other people and their journeys. And look at where you are right
now. You've come along way,You're almost there. You have to make
(23:03):
some decisions now of what you're goingto do. I see that you've been
working with potentially new connections and tryingto find that spot of when it is
that you're going to press go.So we wish you all the best.
Joe, You've given a lot ofwords of wisdom here, but let's just
get some final ones from you.So, look, there's inventors that are
(23:23):
at all different stages of their idealistening and watching. So what is your
take on when you are coming upwith an idea and you're just kind of
stuck, or maybe you're somewhere inbetween and you need to just I don't
know if it's you call it thefinish line, but just continuing on your
(23:44):
journey. Give us some final wordsof wisdom, Joe from you. Never
settle for what the last idea was, and always consider the other possibilities.
That's not to say one should equivocate, but to always be cognizant that what
you originally may have thought was thegoal may actually just be the beginning of
(24:08):
another problem to be solved. Andthat could apply whether in both in the
invention itself or the means to bringthat invention to life. Has this been
an experience not only for you,Joe, but for your family? Oh
my god, well, you know, my my family has been behind me
and I definitely my kids. Theylove the fact that they're dead is trying
(24:32):
to do a trying to have acompany. We have, you know,
we have t shirts and all sortsof you know, hats that they wear
around school. They they love thisand I'm really proud to be a you
know, to be a father inthis day and age and show my children.
First, I have at of aproduct that gets you out away from
the TV screen of video games.It allows you to create we call the
(24:53):
connector of the ultimate imagination machine.Is it really? As I showed to
you know today, you could literallydo whatever you want want with it,
which is what I what I wantedto do from the beginning, as you
know. But I love being afather to give my kids a memory that
I tried at something I tried veryhard, and regardless of my skill set,
(25:14):
I never ever thought that I knewit all. I always questioned and
asked for help where I knew Ineeded it, and I always talk to
people who would who know something differentthan me. And I think that humility
from just a person personal perspective aswell as a father, it teaches my
children that you know, no personcan can go it alone and that but
(25:36):
but together the right community, theright people behind you, with the right
amount of knowledge, you can really, you really can achieve your dreams and
and have you know, something thatis like you know, even in their
young mind, like the American dream, And that to me is probably the
most rewarding thing about all this.What's your goal, Joe? When are
we going to see Farko Toyco Andall the toys and product lines that are
(26:00):
what's your vision? My vision isto have this for the whole world,
you know, to have at itsdisposal next year. We're underway with trying
to get that mass production process startedand I am just looking forward to doing
it the right way. It is. I chomp it the bit sometimes,
but I know, as you knowagain, i'd be a HYPOCRITI if I
(26:21):
didn't do this. But I'm takingmy time. I want to make sure
it's done right because if I doit right, I can do this for
a longer period and for a betterat a better rate for the whole world.
So that way I can really solvethis problem that I had always been
that itch for me. Show usone more time, Joe, just hold
it up to the camera there andgive us just some quick info on how
(26:45):
we can keep in touch with you, how we can keep an eye on
Farkward Toyco. Sure, so I'mgonna show one of my other products right
here. This guy here is theMorphing Connecto Toy Star Speeder. He'll turn
into from a car to a robotand back. Any questions you may have
on my on my products, myinventions, and even if you want to
(27:07):
see my IP It's all available onlineat www. Dot Farcotoyco. Dot com.
And yeah, you can write subscribeto us, and certainly I am
a part attorney, so you can. You can reach me at my professional
address, Jayfarco at Norris dash Lawdot com. And so yeah, that
(27:32):
is what I hope to leave witheverybody. And I really am thankful to
be on your show, Brian.I hope I can be somewhat of an
inspiration and everybody else out there whocreates that I've gotten to meet over time,
whether or not you're listening, you'veinspired me. So I appreciate that
too. Thank you, Joe.We're keeping an eye on you. It's
twenty twenty three, so twenty twentyfour, let's see what you got.
(27:53):
All right, we'll do, Brian, thank you so much. Thank you
so much, Joe, thank youfor joining us. Hey, that was
very interesting. Joe Farco from FarcoToyko. Thank you everybody for watching and
listening. If you'd like to bea guest on the Got Invention Show very
simply go to gott inventionshow dot com. Until then we will see you very
(28:14):
soon. Be inventive, be creative, and keep moving forward with your big ideas.
Welcome to the Got Invention Show.I'm your host Brian Freed, and today
our guest is Joe Farco. Heis an intellectual property attorney and he's also
an inventor. Welcome to the show, Joe, Thank you Brian, thanks
for having me. Joe. Interestingguy, I've known you for a long
time. Why don't you start offby telling the audience who you are and
(00:36):
where you're from. Sure? So, my name is Joe Farco, originally
born and raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. I live out in
Long Island, New York, andI practice intellectual property. I'm an engineer
by trade, also have some sciencedegrees in pharmaceutical chemistry, and I am
an inventor. That is a seriousbackground. With all the engine hearing that
(01:00):
you've done. What did that kindof transpire into as soon as you graduated
college and kind of moved through graduateschool. Well, I mean engineering school
was sort of the area where Igot to hone in on my creative abilities.
It was basically giving someone who hasa knack for painting the paint brushes
(01:21):
and the palette needed to make whatwas coming into their minds. So engineering
gave me that subset but when Ilearned in my engineering degree studies that there
is a way to protect your creations, I said, my gosh, that
sounds really really awesome. I wantto do that for other people. And
that launched me into law school whereI studied and now practice oh gosh,
(01:42):
almost two decades and is a intellectualproperty and patent lawyer. You've had a
chance to see people, innovative,creative people that are coming through your doors,
and now you have put the inventorcap on. From your experience of
being the intellectual property the patent attorney, what has been kind of what you've
(02:04):
seen out there with new inventions andwhat the opportunity might be for innovators and
creators out there. In the panattorney role, I've seen some really brilliant
ideas, really great things that peoplehave made, you know, and I
command anybody who brings things to methat the fortitude they have to pursue their
dream that's always very important. Ithink that was always a big thing in
(02:28):
my life growing up. So seeingsomeone do that and being a part of
that at you know, working withthem to help try and get that sort
of protection for them, is itreally is an honor. So I've only
seen real I've been very blessed tobe part of that, these creations that
people have come up with over theyears. So you got that itch,
You're like, you know what,I'm seeing all these things, watching everybody.
(02:51):
But you know what, you havethat mindset because that's what you did
growing up and obviously what you wentto school for. So now you took
your creativity and you came up withan invention. So, Joe, what
was the problem that you had forthis idea that we're gonna show in a
moment? Sure, Brian, Well, yeah, I like the word itch
(03:13):
that you use because mine happened totake multiple decades. So I mentioned I
grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,So I lived in an apartment. So,
and it was a great decade theeighties when I was growing up as
a young boy, and as youcan imagine, it wasn't too many places
to run around in the urban settingin which I found myself. So I
did make great company with the toysthat I had of that age. But
(03:37):
you know what I had found wasand in fact, if you don't mind,
I mean I you know, forexample, some of these things that
I was privy to as a child, I had action figures, and I
also had these bendable toys. Somepeople from you know, folks my age
and our age may remember these,so you could bend them up and down,
usually had rubber on them, andof course we had the building block,
(03:59):
which there were several at that timethat were a repute, and notably
the Lego block. What happened withme is that I used to try and
make all of these toys play together, and I couldn't do it. It
seemed as almost like the problem existedbecause of the way people designed them.
So people who made bendy toys didn'tmake them work at action figures. And
(04:24):
if you try, anybody try to, if you try using your lego guys
to fight, you know, itended up like a big mess on the
floor. So I was stuck withthis problem, and to be honest,
I use the word itch. Itpersisted my whole life. I sat in
the back of my head and likea lot of people that I've seen on
the PA Attorney side, it's justthey never gave up on that dream.
(04:46):
And I was telling myself I couldmake this better. But I realized that,
you know, even when I wasyoung, I had to go to
engineering school to study and then learnmore about these different areas of practice.
And obviously too I sat around thinkingmaybe so someone else will solve this,
but it just never happened until now. So you had this problem, you
had this itch. I call itthings that annoy me that I invent things
(05:10):
from. So what did you donow, Joe? So you had this
issue? What did you do first? What was the kind of way to
just get started? Because you've seenother people do it, now it's your
turn. I'll call a very educatedtrial and error process. I said to
myself as a child, I wantedto make my toy do whatever I wanted.
(05:33):
In other words, I wanted tokind of move and do whatever I
desired. But I did like customization. That's where like the building blocks came
to play. So I said tomyself, how can I make something that
could move which anyway I want,but can work with a building block.
So I had come with a firstprototype that sort of took that you know,
that bendy toy I showed you andtrying to use a rubber coated bendable
(06:00):
linkage which was like a vendable wire, and then have it interact with building
blocks was my first attempt at tryingto do this. Uh you know what,
so right now it's stiff. Youonly have it one way to kind
of make it work. So thosewere your parameters. You needed it to
be more flexible. You wanted yourwhatever it is that you were creating.
(06:21):
And you know, Joe, Iwould expect maybe you might say it's your
kids that you were doing this for, but it sounds like it was for
you. It was it was something. But I've noticed that a lot of
my you know, my clients thatthey it wasn't a matter of whether someone
else told them they wanted. Itwas something that you know, a person
(06:42):
would come to me and say,this is a problem that they saw and
they felt resolute and trying to solve. And that's kind of how it was.
In fact, Brian, you'd beI actually would push back and say,
you know, kids say really don'teven know there. They were born
under this regime where if you havean action figure, you play your action
figures over there. If you haveBendy toys are almost not existent now,
and you know, and the likeLego basically licenses a lot of its properties
(07:05):
and essentially will you know, youknow, what their sets can do.
But they're not like, no one'slooking for compatibilities. Everyone's staying in their
lane. I want to kind ofbring it all together. Can you show
us a demo, Joe, showus how it works? Certainly right now,
what's out there are components like likethings. I put this on one
(07:25):
of my examples here, and youknow, you could see here the pieces
are familiar, and they bend andthey move, but of course, like
at you know, at a certainpoint they they can't move any which way
you want. And then also justfrom the appearance of it, you know,
while you know everyone will say,hey, this looks like a cool,
you know, building block, towith this, it's difficult to look
(07:47):
at this and say, wow,that's it looks like an action figure.
But this is what everybody's come toexpect from building. With today's building blocks,
it'll look like this segmented joint.I mean, who's do your legs
have? You know? All theselittle pieces in between that that have these
knobs in between. No, it'sthat that's a function of the limitation of
(08:09):
these pieces. If they didn't havethese little knobs, you know, they
couldn't move and you're stuck and bythe way, if you if you if
you twisted the wrong way, ohyeah, if you bend it the wrong
way, it's snaps. So youknow, a child playing rigorously with a
building block, a pure building blocktoy, you know, want to make
an arm like this. If yougo to go to move it, you
(08:31):
know, they snap apart. Sothe technology I have is what I call
an action block or posable building blockunit. You could see here these pieces
are compatible with known building blocks Ie. Lego and others. And but
but they are uh they exist arecoupled to a posable metal wire. So
(08:56):
what happens is while they're both compatible, well, they also provide a movement
and capability that was never before imagined. Now what happens is you can take
that building block I just showed youa moment ago, and you can put
it onto your connectel like so andreally in a new building way where you're
not just building one on top ofthe other or connecting ball and socket joints
(09:18):
as the case may be. Youthread these on like so goodmand and now
whila. This This is called theThis particular toy is called Persona. Persono
is a fully bendable action figure.But he's buildable from building blocks, and
(09:45):
in addition to that, he canbe maneuvered into various different poses and he
will hold those positions for you asyou see fit. Why is irreproducible with
known building blocks? Particularly here ifyou want to look at the spine,
(10:05):
it is just not capable of beingdone. But the connecto provides that in
this particular connecto building block unit Icall the links. Here's what it looks
like outside of the building block system. So there's a couple of virtues of
this we'll go into in a moment, but this is just one embodiment showing
(10:26):
you how you use this particular toolto build in a way that was heretofore
unimaginable and gives you a new versatilitythat you couldn't have before. Congratulations,
Joe, well accomplished. So let'stalk about your journey now as an inventor.
(10:46):
So you came up with this solutionto what you wanted to make as
bendable, flexible type of figures,and what did you figure out? Because
you have the background and engineering,so you might have an advantage or a
head start to a lot of usthat maybe might not have figured that out
or figured out what to do first, So was it kind of easy for
(11:09):
you in the beginning. No.I think for any one of us who
seeks a solved problem, the answeryou find is not the final one.
And I say that really as abit of wisdom I learned along the way
in my life is that despite myknowledge, my expertise as an engineer,
having studied robots and manufacturing, youstill need to ask questions. I am
(11:31):
not a manufacturer, so you stillneed to get input. You need to
ask questions, talk to people,seek out resources from those people who provide
it. Groups like you know,people like yourself, anyone who's basically has
access to people that can give youfurther information. More information is always better
than saying, yeah, I gotit, let's just go forward. That
(11:52):
decision is something I've learned from,you know, working with my clients and
seeing others that I don't want todo. I always challenge myself to ask
a question, trying to find thebest way, and sometimes you make mistakes.
It's part of learning. There's nothere's no book for your your invention,
your ideas, there's no story writtenfor that. You're the You're the
author of it. So sometimes youneed some editing. Makes sense. Now,
(12:15):
you as the inventor and having tofile some sort of intellectual property,
what did you do? Did youfirst work on your invention, get it
to a certain point, and thenprotect it or did you protect it first?
What did uh inventor do with thepatent attorney? Well, okay,
(12:37):
so in my situation, sometimes,uh, you know, and this is
in legal advice, but sometimes youhave an idea that you can file right
away upon and you you go forwardwith it because the way to make it
is probably well understood. The wayin which it operates can be deduced from
looking at it, so in whichcase you could file for for the IP
(12:58):
right away. I did something thatwas kind of old school. I actually
want to improve to myself that Icould make it and that I had a
path for mass production of it first. And why is that my particular component
is different for a lot of people. They may hear of injection mold terminology.
My product is an insert mold technology. This is all disclosed in the
(13:20):
patent, which I made sure toinclude, which is a good idea for
anyone to do, but I hadto. I want to make sure I
figured out a way to do this. Repeatably, because a lot of times
an inventor will come to me mentionthis great design, and I asked them,
I said, you know, howhow much is it going to cost
to makes that thing? And thenall of a sudden, I feel you
(13:41):
could see in their eyes the sunturned into into gloom because it's they didn't
think that that far ahead, andmyself, I wanted, you know,
I my advantage was having that experienceand having the background I was able to
sell. I knew I had tofigure this out first, because a lot
of times a good idea is notyou know, an invention and innovation are
two different things, and the innovationis what everyone wants to try and get
(14:05):
to. But the inventions are obviouslynecessary component of that. But if you
know your products can't be made viably, it could be difficult for it to
have a future. But that's notto say it can't be done for me.
I wanted to prove that to myselffirst, and once I had proved
it, then you know, zipI followed right away, and you know,
(14:26):
I did all the usual steps gettingfar you know, floul and for
foreign protection and so forth. Okay, it took care of the engineering prototyping,
getting some quotes, figuring out whereyou were going to be with what
it's going to look like to actuallycommercialize your invention. And then you filed
and now you're patent pending or patentedat this point patter and pending. At
(14:48):
the moment your patent pending, you'reon showing how the prototype or it looks
almost like the real thing. Tome, it looks like you did a
very nice job with the with theprototype. And now what's next for you,
Joe? What are you up to? So the next part is finalizing
the parts that they are in theirfinal incarnation. So it is true the
(15:11):
pieces that we're shown on this showare pro type material. But the next
stage is to start getting the finalversions made, sending them out to folks
who could help to disseminate this newtechnology which has been its own experience.
I could talk about that at yourleisure, but it's certainly for in my
(15:33):
area. Which I implore every inventorto do is really really know your market
and not just know it. Whothe customer is, Know who the distributors
are, Know who the marketing peopleare. Know who are the heralds of
the idea, Those voices in thoseears are critical to know because you could
(15:54):
solve a problem in quiet on anisland, but no one will ever know
about it your idea. If youreally want to solve the problem for the
public, you got to get thepublic to know. And I've you know,
that's been a huge lesson for meto learn. So that's that's really
been my that's my next step onthis. So while you know, certainly
we're going to keep innovating, butyeah, the major part of this is
(16:14):
getting that idea out to the masses. You were probably at that fork in
the road, or you still mightbe that in that fork in the road.
And it's a decision that many inventorsare faced with. Is this something
is Farco toyco and the everything thatyou kind of put together. Is this
something that you're going to go allin on and manufacture and start your own
(16:36):
business and put it out there forsale, or are you going to work
with your intellectual property and the assetsthat you've built and look for a potential
licensing deal where you would go toa company that's already in the business,
most likely a toy company. Theywould manufacture it for you, they would
distribute it and you would earn aroyalty from it. So where are you
(17:00):
know, at that fork in theroad. But if you remember the old
Looney Tunes cartoons where the they havetwo train tracks and the cartoon character has
their foot on two different moving piecesgoing in opposite directions on the train,
the struggle cartoon character, that's kindof like what I'm doing, So if
you could imagine that. But I'mcertainly always open to it. What I've
found is, and this may facea lot of the viewers as well,
(17:23):
you have this great idea and youwant to license it, but you're you
know, the the company is lookingat you and saying, well, what
type of viability does it have?And certainly the more they have to put
into getting the idea up to acertain level, it could decrease what royalty
you believe you're entitled to. Andsometimes there's a reality play there. I
tell clients all the time, ifyou're not going to you know, if
(17:45):
you don't have too much skin inthe game, you can't ask much more
from them either. It's it's it'sa you know, it's kind of a
give and take. But what Ifound from my ability to obtain resources,
uh, third party resources and factto try and do this is that I
I do want to pursue it.I think that I've been able to get
(18:06):
the manufacturing to the point where itcan be done repeatably and in in a
way that that could be financially beneficial. And but but I think also I
also have many different partnerships with folkswho helped me make like for example,
the blocks that you saw that wereused that persona one of my clients uses
them. But and this is tosay too for viewers as well, tap
(18:30):
into as many channels as you can, as many resources that are offered.
Again, like like folks like you, Brian, having people meet up with
people figuring out what connections can bemade. You're you know, the the
reality of your idea is not thatfar off. It's just a matter of
doing the legwork. So I usuallytell people the amount of rigor intellectual rigor
that went into solving the problem.You have to do equal, if not
(18:52):
more of that to help bring itto life. And if people go in
that way, if you make thattype of investment, you know, I
think it helps you at least tryit out. And if you know,
I'm not selling people waste your money. I mean, if if it's really
cost prohibitive, and you might learnthat too, you might have to settle
for licensing it because it may bejust too outside of your you know,
(19:14):
the the financial reality that you oryour family may be involved. Speaking of
connections, you were talking about acouple I think it was about a week
or so ago, you were talkingabout going to the Toy Fair. Tell
us about that kind of experience whenyou have gone through all this, Joe,
and then there's an industry trade showthat you have a chance to go
(19:37):
to. What was that experience likefor you as an inventor for what I've
been trying to do, is verygratifying. I go into the Toy Fair.
I wasn't in a big I wasn'tin a big space. I was
really I was at a corner ofa table, which again a colleagues that
I had allowed me to take upsome of that space. We had a
banner, and I, you know, I went all in. I was
very passionate presenting it, and wegot really wonderful feedback. I you know,
(20:00):
people saw the virtues, and alot of people thought it was like
magic. At some point they didn'tand in some were afraid to touch my
product because they thought it was gonnafall apart. But then when they moved
it, or when like one ofthem dropped on the floor and it didn't
smash, they thought that I didsomething, I rigged it or something.
But I said not, you know, that's just just that's what that's the
invention inside there. There was otherthings too, I mean, for you
(20:22):
know, for example, we youknow this person, you know, the
PERSONO was one embodiment. This wascool princessor this thing was something that when
I came up with the idea tosolve action figures, I had never had
in mind to make bendable building blockjewelry. This type of thing was really
frankly, this was just something that's, you know, kind of spur of
(20:45):
the moment. But then when Istarted realizing and this was I worked on
this with my my older son.We started seeing possibilities with CONNECTO that you
wouldn't otherwise have right now, andI and I and that was another thing
about the two wayfare that really wasreally resonated with me. Folks really enjoyed
the fact that I made a piecethat can act as like sort of a
(21:07):
bendable scaffold to make things look likethey're floating. I mean I have right
here this is a a opposed opposedperson flying in a in a hot air
balloon. So you know, whenwhen you when you want to put that
on your countertop or whatever, itdoes something that you can't otherwise do.
(21:30):
Right now, I mean, here'sjust another one too. These mini figures
for example, really big staple rightnow in the building block community. But
now you can make a scene whereyou have like you know, this happens
to be Spider Man again, thisis Lego into Legos property, Marble and
Disney. But you can make youknow, Spider Man shoot web. You
can make him fly and hold themposition in space. So I was seeing
(21:52):
things that we can use with thistechnology that had not you know, had
not been really thought of. Iwasn't originally thinking of. So sometimes the
idea the problem you started to solveand do solve, then you figure out
you can solve so many other differentproblems using the same thing. And it
just requires a person to constantly,like I said, constantly be innovating,
(22:17):
constantly, be thinking outside the box, because it's it's when it's when we
stop that creative process then you're you'rekind of just left and sometimes you do
and and me though I can't help, but I love doing it. It's
it's a wonderful thing and I andI enjoy seeing and I always tell my
(22:37):
you know, my clients, tonever stop thinking, never stop trying to
push those boundaries. That's great show. Look, this show was about you,
and you're constantly kind of thinking abouthow you have gone through not only
yourself but other people and their journeys. And look at where you are right
now. You've come along way,You're almost there. You have to make
(23:03):
some decisions now of what you're goingto do. I see that you've been
working with potentially new connections and tryingto find that spot of when it is
that you're going to press go.So we wish you all the best.
Joe, You've given a lot ofwords of wisdom here, but let's just
get some final ones from you.So, look, there's inventors that are
(23:23):
at all different stages of their idealistening and watching. So what is your
take on when you are coming upwith an idea and you're just kind of
stuck, or maybe you're somewhere inbetween and you need to just I don't
know if it's you call it thefinish line, but just continuing on your
(23:44):
journey. Give us some final wordsof wisdom, Joe from you. Never
settle for what the last idea was, and always consider the other possibilities.
That's not to say one should equivocate, but to always be cognizant that what
you originally may have thought was thegoal may actually just be the beginning of
(24:08):
another problem to be solved. Andthat could apply whether in both in the
invention itself or the means to bringthat invention to life. Has this been
an experience not only for you,Joe, but for your family? Oh
my god, well, you know, my my family has been behind me
and I definitely my kids. Theylove the fact that they're dead is trying
(24:32):
to do a trying to have acompany. We have, you know,
we have t shirts and all sortsof you know, hats that they wear
around school. They they love thisand I'm really proud to be a you
know, to be a father inthis day and age and show my children.
First, I have at of aproduct that gets you out away from
the TV screen of video games.It allows you to create we call the
(24:53):
connector of the ultimate imagination machine.Is it really? As I showed to
you know today, you could literallydo whatever you want want with it,
which is what I what I wantedto do from the beginning, as you
know. But I love being afather to give my kids a memory that
I tried at something I tried veryhard, and regardless of my skill set,
(25:14):
I never ever thought that I knewit all. I always questioned and
asked for help where I knew Ineeded it, and I always talk to
people who would who know something differentthan me. And I think that humility
from just a person personal perspective aswell as a father, it teaches my
children that you know, no personcan can go it alone and that but
(25:36):
but together the right community, theright people behind you, with the right
amount of knowledge, you can really, you really can achieve your dreams and
and have you know, something thatis like you know, even in their
young mind, like the American dream, And that to me is probably the
most rewarding thing about all this.What's your goal, Joe? When are
we going to see Farko Toyco Andall the toys and product lines that are
(26:00):
what's your vision? My vision isto have this for the whole world,
you know, to have at itsdisposal next year. We're underway with trying
to get that mass production process startedand I am just looking forward to doing
it the right way. It is. I chomp it the bit sometimes,
but I know, as you knowagain, i'd be a HYPOCRITI if I
(26:21):
didn't do this. But I'm takingmy time. I want to make sure
it's done right because if I doit right, I can do this for
a longer period and for a betterat a better rate for the whole world.
So that way I can really solvethis problem that I had always been
that itch for me. Show usone more time, Joe, just hold
it up to the camera there andgive us just some quick info on how
(26:45):
we can keep in touch with you, how we can keep an eye on
Farkward Toyco. Sure, so I'mgonna show one of my other products right
here. This guy here is theMorphing Connecto Toy Star Speeder. He'll turn
into from a car to a robotand back. Any questions you may have
on my on my products, myinventions, and even if you want to
(27:07):
see my IP It's all available onlineat www. Dot Farcotoyco. Dot com.
And yeah, you can write subscribeto us, and certainly I am
a part attorney, so you can. You can reach me at my professional
address, Jayfarco at Norris dash Lawdot com. And so yeah, that
(27:32):
is what I hope to leave witheverybody. And I really am thankful to
be on your show, Brian.I hope I can be somewhat of an
inspiration and everybody else out there whocreates that I've gotten to meet over time,
whether or not you're listening, you'veinspired me. So I appreciate that
too. Thank you, Joe.We're keeping an eye on you. It's
twenty twenty three, so twenty twentyfour, let's see what you got.
(27:53):
All right, we'll do, Brian, thank you so much. Thank you
so much, Joe, thank youfor joining us. Hey, that was
very interesting. Joe Farco from FarcoToyko. Thank you everybody for watching and
listening. If you'd like to bea guest on the Got Invention Show very
simply go to gott inventionshow dot com. Until then we will see you very
(28:14):
soon. Be inventive, be creative, and keep moving forward with your big ideas.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.