Today in
engineering history
May 13th
1958: Velcro® Trademark is registered
George de Mestral, a Swiss mountaineer, tells the
story, he was hiking with his dog in 1948 and was frustrated to see all of
these burrs covering them both when he returned home. He says he was fascinated
by how tough they were to take off and looked at them in a microscope. He saw
that they had small hooks that enabled the seed-bearing burr to cling
effectively to the small fabric loops on his pants. This was an “aha” moment
and he was inspired to design a fastener using the same concept. He called his
invention ‘velcro’, combining the French words velour (velvet) and crochet
(hook). He predicted: “It will rival the zipper in its ability to fasten.”
The idea was not an immediate success and met with
derision by some. He persevered and worked with a weaver from a textile plant
in France to develop a nylon type fabric that had the hook and loop fastener
concept, patented it in 1955 and trademarked it in 1958. A U.S. patent was
filed on May 9, 1958 and awarded on Nov. 21, 1961.
Inspired by the burr, de Mestral created the world's
first hook-and-loop fastener. De Mestral originally envisioned VELCRO® Brand
hook and loop as a fastener for clothing. Today it is being utilized across a
wide range of industries, from healthcare to your garage to the military. While
each VELCRO® Brand product is built for a specific task, the principal
mechanics remain the same. Just think: the VELCRO® Brand solutions that keep
your tablet device mounted to the wall are based on the same principles as the
ones that NASA uses to keep their dinner plates from floating in zero gravity
space.
The original Velcro® company was formed in 1952 to
manufacture this invention and now Velcro® is a multi-million dollar industry.
