Ha, kinda… I had my idea of them without ever seeing one. My inspiration was the Kinetic Rock & Roll, but I wanted a universal system that worked with any existing trainer.
After building my first one in late 2015, some google searching showed a US guy made some years earlier and CoPlate was selling them actively in the EU at that time. They just didn’t see wide use until I shared my design in Nov 2017.
So, not the official inventor, 3rd in line at least 