How a Mom of Three Boys Got 7 US Patents

I didn't set out to become an inventor. I set out to clean up Legos.

If you've ever lived with a Lego-obsessed kid — let alone three of them — you know the specific misery of stepping on a brick at 11pm in a dark hallway. You also know the cleanup problem: the pieces are everywhere, the sets are mixed together, and no bin, bag, or box actually solves it. You end up on your hands and knees picking them up one by one.

One day I had an idea so obvious it seemed like it must already exist: what if the play surface was the bag? You spread it out flat, the kids build on it, and when it's time to clean up you just pull the drawstring and everything disappears inside. No scooping. No sorting. No stepping on anything at 11pm.

I looked everywhere for that product. It didn't exist. So my husband Adam and I decided to make it.

From kitchen table idea to US Patent — in about two years

I want to be honest about what that process actually looked like, because it wasn't glamorous.

We had no background in manufacturing, product design, or intellectual property law. What we had was a problem we couldn't stop thinking about, a kitchen table, and a willingness to figure things out one phone call at a time.

The first thing we learned is that a good idea is not the same as a protectable idea. A patent attorney helped us understand what made our layflat-to-drawstring mechanism genuinely novel — not just the concept, but the specific way the bag opens flat, holds its shape during play, and cinches closed cleanly. That specificity is what you patent. The broad dream is not enough.

From that first conversation to our first granted US utility patent took roughly one to two years. During that time we were also raising three boys, which meant a lot of late nights and a lot of learning to think in small, focused chunks of time.

It was worth every minute.

Why patents matter for a small brand

We now hold 7 US utility patents on the layflat-to-drawstring mechanism. People ask us why we pursued so many. The answer is simple: because the mechanism works, and because it works for a lot more than Legos.

The same design that solves toy cleanup turns out to be the perfect travel makeup bag. Lay it flat to access everything at once — no more digging. Pull the drawstring and it's packed. Our COSMO cosmetic bag has become our best-selling product, beloved by travelers, makeup enthusiasts, and anyone who has ever emptied an entire bag onto a hotel bathroom counter looking for their eyeliner.

The patents protect the investment we made in figuring this out. They also give us something to say when a much larger company notices what we've built: we were here first, and we can prove it.

What I wish someone had told me

A few things I learned that I'd tell any mom — or any person — sitting on an idea:

The process is learnable. Patent law sounds intimidating. It has its own language and its own logic. But it is not magic, and it is not only for engineers or lawyers. If you can clearly describe what your thing does and why it does it differently than everything else, you can work with a patent attorney to translate that into something protectable.

File early, even if it's imperfect. A provisional patent application establishes your priority date — the date you officially had the idea on record. It buys you 12 months to refine before you file the full application. We wish we'd known this earlier.

Your customers will tell you what else to patent. We didn't anticipate every use case for the layflat mechanism. Our customers showed us. They were using it for pet grooming, first responder gear, fishing tackle, craft supplies. That feedback shaped our product line and our IP strategy.

The part that still surprises me

Eleven years into this, the thing that still catches me off guard is how much the simple act of solving a real problem compounds over time.

We started with a Lego cleanup mat. We now make organizers for travelers, makeup lovers, first responders, new parents, and anyone who has ever said I can never find anything in this bag. We've sold hundreds of thousands of units. We've been featured in gift guides, mom blogs, and travel publications. We've got seven patents.

And occasionally, at 11pm, I still walk down a dark hallway in my own house and step on a Lego.

Some problems are eternal. We just made the cleanup a little easier.

Amy Fazackerley is the CEO and Co-Founder of Lay-n-Go, LLC, maker of patented layflat-to-drawstring organizers for life, play, and travel. She founded the company in 2010 with her husband Adam.