Gaining ground
Name: Ron Gallagher and Peter McLean
Business: TripStop Pty Ltd
Industry: Engineering
IP smart since: December 2005
Council amenities aren’t all they’re cracked
up to be – and with damaged pavements posing serious
injury hazards to pedestrians and a costly process to
repair, an innovative design has been welcomed by local
councils.
After walking outside his house one morning and witnessing
a council crew replacing numerous damaged footpaths
around trees in his area, Peter McLean stumbled over
a clever idea. Enthused with the prospect of stopping
people tripping over footpaths that erupt with the pressure
of swelling tree roots, he secured financial backing
from his friend of 50 years, Ron Gallagher, to turn
his idea into a commercial reality. Harking back to
the embryonic days of the company, Gallagher says: “Typically
you have to go through a process and prove the idea
works somehow and that requires you to commercialise
it, so that’s what we did.”
McLean’s concept, ‘TripStop’, provides
a technical solution to the cracking and movement of
concrete pavements. TripStop allows concrete to articulate
and accommodates significant soil movement and tree
root invasion. It is made from a PVC material which
is enclosed in wet concrete, separating otherwise continuous
concrete footpaths into separate but linked slabs, acting
as a hinge and joining freshly installed slabs together
for perfect articulation.
Realising the potential of the product, the duo sought
help from a patent attorney at intellectual property
law firm Watermark for assistance with applying for
a patent. With a background in engineering, the attorney
recognised the increasing problem for councils of damaged
footpaths, attesting to TripStop’s commercial
potential.
“Pursuing IP protection seemed a natural first
step,” says Gallagher. “In fact we sought
the opinion of our patent attorney to assist us in determining
not only the likelihood of a successful patent application
but also the commercial merit of TripStop.”
Gallagher confirms that having IP protection has without
question made TripStop more valuable to investors. “It
would have been extremely difficult to attract investors
without the protection afforded by patents.”
Widespread approval
After conducting extensive trials and testing including
the School of Civil and Technical Engineering at the
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), they
finally had a marketable product. The company was granted
patent protection in December 2005, and the name ‘TripStop’
has also been trade marked to assist protection of the
brand.
Towards the end of 2002, McLean and Gallagher contracted
two commission-based salespeople, sending them along
the east coast to market and sell the product, and have
since established a number of new distributors for the
product around the country.
With the lifespan of TripStop measured in decades, local
councils around Australia have responded enthusiastically.
Several city councils have specified TripStop as a standard
item for all replacements to pavements around trees.
Now McLean and Gallagher are looking to push TripStop
to an international audience,with negotiations with
interested parties in the US on the boil.
Industry recognition
TripStop has also been recognised for its engineering
innovation, receiving numerous national and international
awards. The product won a gold medal with special commendation
from a list of 39 inventions at Geneva 2006 in the category
of ‘Building, Architecture, Civil Engineering,
Construction, Material, Woodwork’. It won the
Best New Product 2005 at CivEnEx in Sydney; and a Best
of Episode award on The New Inventors program on ABC
TV.
With the value of an independently tested product,
industry recognition and secure intellectual property,
Peter McLean and Ron Gallagher won’t be tripping
over any cracks in their business path to success.
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