If the tech space had a version of a Mary J. Blige song, it would be the story of Riz Nwosu.

As a huge fan of Tesla’s products and admirer of Elon Musk, Riz worked on a backpack concept called Cyberbackpack.

Inspired by the 2019 development and unveiling of the Tesla Cybertruck, Riz started developing a backpack based on that concept. After meeting Elon Musk and Franz von Holzhausen (designer of the Cybertruck), Riz finalized the design for what would become the Cyberbackpack.

Excited about his development, Riz bought and registered cyberbackpack.com to begin taking pre-orders – a sales strategy he says he picked up from Tesla.

According to a newsletter post that Riz posted on Linkedin, he received his prototype of the backpack just last month. He also launched the Cyberbackpack on ProductHunt and created a Shopify website to start receiving official orders. Once it was out there, he says the response to the backpack was positive — the people were interested.

Wait! What Happened?

With a fierce determination to succeed, he decided to shoot his shot at collaborating with Elon and the Tesla brand. Firing off his shot via Twitter, Riz created a thread aimed at Elon about the Cyberpackpack while also reaching out to a top Tesla executive about the possibility of a partnership.

 

Patiently awaiting a response, Riz found out some shocking news. Tesla filed a trademark for the word “CYBERBACKPACK,” indicating the filing was intended to sell “Bookbags” and “School bags.”

Because of the popularity of the Tesla brand, the news about the trademark filing was all over the internet.

Optimism Despite The Challenges

Since the news about Tesla usurping the trademark name, Riz has since filed his own. The caveat: he added a “first use” date of December 2021 to his filing. He’s exploring his options for the use of the word “CYBERBACKPACK.”

Riz also still desires to partner with Tesla. Currently, he’s soliciting the help of his online community to help him spread the news of what’s going on and advocate for the electric-car company to pump the proverbial breaks and do the right thing if they did get the idea from him in the first place.