Monica Williams, a medical doctor, can now add to her accomplishments a pending patent for an invention called Pacimals — stuffed animals with built-in pacifiers.
Her invention came about less than two years ago, when her then-2-month-old daughter, Mackenzie Smith, gave her an idea.
Monica had first noticed in the hospital that nurses would tape a pacifier to a small thin blanket that sat on babies’ chests in the nursery.
Monica tried sewing a pacifier onto plush toys, and Mackenzie decided she liked it.
“It anatomically laid on the chest well,” she said.
The idea has become Pacimals.
The process proved long, but eventually, Monica wrote her own provisional, which is a placeholder document filed with the U.S. Patent Office before an actual patent is published.
She researched similar inventions to make sure her idea was unique.
“I wrote my patent based on what I read and saw,” she said.
Over the next year, she did work in project development, marketing and sales.
Photo by Love Kub.
cassy on July 31st, 2008 at 9:14 pm
With this kind of pacifier babies will surely love it.
Winning Startups on August 1st, 2008 at 5:52 am
Don’t like it. The last thing my kid needs is more incentive to use a pacifier.
Angela on August 1st, 2008 at 11:36 am
I must say, my daughter may not use a pacifier (thank goodness) but she does suck her thumb which is so much worse. You can throw out a pacifier when you’re ready to break your child of the habit, but you can’t throw out a thumb.
I, however, do know people who could have benefited from something of this sort when their children were little. It’s a great idea.
Cinde on November 8th, 2008 at 11:15 am
I would like to find the wholesaler for Pacipals so I can carry them in my gift shop. Can anyone provide me with that info? I went to Pacipal website but it was for online shopping and I didn’t see any contact info.