The not so simple paper clip

It is surprising where the topic of inventions and patents can pop up. This evening on BBC 2’s topical comedy show Mock the Week, one of the panellists mentioned the humble paper clip and how it had never been patented.

As I soon discovered this could not have been further from the truth as can be seen at EarlyOfficeMuseum.com

Paperclip

However the iconic version of the this ubiquitous product shown above and produced by Gem Manufacturing an English company prior to 1899 was first patented by Johan Vaaler a Norwegian. However it appears that Vaaler did not make any money out of ‘his’ invention. Which just goes to show.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 10:28 pm and is filed under entrepreneurship, IP issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to The not so simple paper clip

  1. 20,000 blog views so far - but the paper clip is King « In through the outfield says:
    31 December 2008 at 1:20 pm

    […] story I on my blogs (by a factor of 4) was the one about the humble paper clip from August 2007 The not so simple paper clip. I have spend some time trying work out why this particular story has proved to be so popular, but […]

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  2. British Standard for a cup of tea – BS 6008 (revisited) « In through the outfield says:
    14 December 2011 at 12:46 pm

    […] It reminded me of one of my earliest posts on this blog, way back in 2007, British Standard for a cup of tea – BS 6008. Surprisingly this has become my third most popular topic of all time (after the Bic Crystal ballpoint pen and the not so simple paper clip) […]

    Reply

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