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.”

[Subheading] 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.

[Subheading] 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.