ASHEVILLE - Asheville inventor Brent Ford recently received a patent for a new floatation device. Said Ford, “forget building a better mouse trap, what the world needs is a better way to float stuff in water.” The world is familiar with the ubiquitous inflatable ring. Ford continued, “inflatable rings are not adjustable nor particularly stable – they can easily turn over.” 

Ford had his eureka moment during the dark days of Covid spending time in the hot tub. After spilling a drink while trying to use an inflatable coaster, Ford realized the center of gravity of the coaster and any beverage was almost always too high, making the drink tip over. He also realized the center of gravity changed over time as the drink was consumed. Said Ford, “a fixed, inflated ring was not appropriate for the task. What I needed was a highly stable, easily-adjustable floatation device designed to hold different objects with differing centers of gravity.” 
Early prototypes were made from women’s knee-high stockings Ford stole from his wife’s dresser and six ping-pong balls. Now Ford is using a North Carolina sock manufacturer to create an engineered elastic tubing to hold the ping-pong balls. The tube can be easily adjusted for the size of the container, changing centers of gravity, and changing water conditions. 

It took three years from filing a provisional patent to the issuance of the utility patent this month. The patent was issued on the first try – no revisions or amendments. The attorney reported it was only the third patent in his career to make it through on the first try. “I knew it was a good idea,” said Ford. 
The product is used to float beverages in a variety of containers in pools, hot tubs, lakes – even the ocean. It floats candles in a pool or water feature, or plants in water gardens or ponds. “The uses are almost endless,” said Ford, “we even developed our own version of the beer pong game called Benzeni™ Pool Pong.” Benzeni™ is the name given to the product, based on the benzene molecule. 

Ford concluded by saying, “this is a very different, very fun product, and seeing it in action really tells its story. (Click link for video.)  Now we just need to get it into people’s hands.”     

* Benzeni™ is covered by a utility patent as follows: 
US Patent. No. #11,639,213
Application #17/335742
Issue Date: 5/2/2023 
Brent A Ford Benzeni™ by nVizn Ideas LLC +1 828-230-7557 

Source: Benzeni