Wildwater is looking for manufacturers and marketers for the riverbug worldwide, but in particular in the United States.

The riverbug has been successfully used for many years:

• in the challenging environment of river rapids in New Zealand and Scotland
• within the sport of inner tube water polo in New Zealand; and
• as a recreational toy.

Wildwater has demonstrated:

• there is market demand for the product across multiple applications and in more than one country.
• the product has in the past been manufactured successfully and sold at a reasonable margin.
• the product has been used safely for over ten years in several countries without any quality issues arising.

The riverbug is protected by a patent (US 6,155,899), patent of addition (US 6,227,925) and a design registration (US 398,694) in the United States, and similar protection exists in other countries including Europe (EP 0925220B1).  This intellectual property enables our client to prevent third parties from copying the riverbug or making and selling watercraft of a similar design.

The manufacturing processes for the riverbug are technically similar to those for an inflatable kayak.

There are at least two distinct markets for the riverbug - a cheaper version for the family recreational market and a higher specified model for river rapids and commercial river operators.  Wildwater is looking for manufacturers and marketers in both markets, throughout the world.

Wildwater would like to license the manufacture and marketing of the riverbug to a successful company or companies, and believes that existing manufacturers of inflatable water craft would be ideally suited.

If you are interested, please contact our attorney Mr Simon Rowell of James & Wells Intellectual Property (simonr@jaws.co.nz ).