ANGEL INVESTORS TO TAKE GROUNDBREAKING KIWI INVENTION GLOBAL

Auckland, November, 2002 -- Display Station Ltd announces the launch of Display Station, a groundbreaking New Zealand invention that is so unique it has been granted patents in all major trading continents.

Auckland angel investors, The Department of New Ideas, entered into a funding / equity agreement with its inventor Peter Schlesinger, after considering hundreds of business propositions that had failed to meet the strict investment criteria required by managing partners Dermot Kelly and Patrick Draper.

Display Station's international patenting successes are attributed to a unique design that solves all problems associated with the use of existing promotional literature display holders and stands available on the world market. Display Station Patent Attorney Mike Hawkins, a senior partner in intellectual property firm Baldwin Shelston Waters, says to attain granted patents in all key trading markets is both a major achievement and a long and expensive process. "It takes a lot of courage to include in your business plan a global patenting process, as Peter has so determinedly done to achieve that end," he says. "In obtaining patents in the US and Europe particularly you need to be able to establish both an invention's novelty and inventiveness."

The commercial launch of Display Station marks the culmination of 12 years of R&D by product design engineer and Display Station inventor Peter Schlesinger, including eight years and nearly $1 million spent in R&D. More recently, The Department of New Ideas Ltd has invested in the commercialisation of Display Station.

"We were quite surprised that we could get so excited about a basic utility product", Department of New Ideas Ltd Director Dermot Kelly says. "However, when we considered its market potential - almost everyone uses brochures to promote a product or service - we fully realised its global significance. "Also, we knew we could rely on Peter Schlesinger's technical abilities to complete the product development process - taking Display Station from a prototype to mass-production stage - while we focused on building the business.

"We had looked at literally hundreds of businesses in New Zealand to invest in over the past couple of years, but could not find a truly international product with so many applications until we came across Display Station, Dermot Kelly says. The Department of New Ideas' market research confirmed nothing like Display Station existed on the international market; it was an entirely new concept in promotional print presentation and dispensing, as underlined by the uniqueness accorded to it by the granting of patents in all major trading continents. "It was amazing to think that almost anyone who has had to look after promotional displays would have come up with ideas to improve on their design, or even employed someone to do this," he says. But till the advent of Display Station the problem had been left unresolved.

Through market research Peter Schlesinger had identified 12 major drawbacks with commonly available promotional display systems, including brochure curling, fallout, rollover and fading. Overall he found "a general messiness and lack of control - the fact that no matter how neatly one leaves such a presentation it disintegrates into a promotional mess as soon as you turn you're back on it". Peter Schlesinger then embarked on an exhaustive design process that systematically and comprehensively resolved each of these problems, Dermot Kelly says.

Display Station has set a new international standard in its product category, completely transforming the style, appearance, functionality, performance and scalability of promotional literature display products. Display Station offers storage, dispensing and display functions and its modular design allows for promotional literature of all sizes to be displayed because it can be used as a single unit or in multiple units. This is not just a brochure holder; it is a true visual merchandising system than can be scaled up to billboard size.

Prepared for Display Station by Communicator - the Brand-building network for New Zealand innovations

Contact:
Patrick Draper, (09) 915 0096, mobile: 021 372 727, patrick@displaystation.net