HABERMAN, Mandy, English inventor, b-1954. One of the most successful women inventors of today, winner of the 2000 British Female Inventor of the Year Award, for her Anywayup Cup for feeding infants. Another of her inventions for toddlers is the Haberman Feeder. Both products feature one way valves, in the first case the objective is a non-spill function when the cup is dropped. In the second case the teat has a valve so that the baby gets the contents of the teat since the contents cannot flow back into the bottle. The Anywayup Cup has been highly acclaimed (a Millennium Product), but more importantly 10 million of them were sold in the year 2000, after so few years on the market this is impressive. Because of the rapid commercial success of her products Mandy was in a most unusual position for an inventor. She had the cashflow to fight big companies intent on infringing her patents within Europe. She won many legal battles and became an expert on the differences between granted patents and valid patents. In her experiences, having done everything right in terms of protecting her property with patents but having to fight infringements (and winning), she has become not merely a celebrity but an authority. Mandy is now a member of certain bodies within CIPA, the Patent Office, and the IPI, which examine these complications in Patent Law with a view to improving matters for the lone inventor or small company. It is heartening to see a successful inventor making such efforts to improve the situation so that fellow inventors may not encounter quite so many difficulties in the future. Mandy features in some recent Patent Office advertising. She is known to be working on several other inventions now, watch this space!

Anywayup-Cup