One of the most useful problematic things to deal with when you're trying to keep pieces of paper together, is how this is to be done. Paper, by its very nature is not adhesive, and requires something more to allow it to remain in a group.
Many solutions have actually been tried, some of which involve different types of chemical or water-based adhesive, called "glue", and others which attempt to place the corners of the paper into a position where they cannot possibly move on their own. The most permanent method involves binding the paper together by making holes in it and threading string through the holes.
In between, there are various methods that touch on both sides, and vary from being more and less effective.
The most popular method is the "paper clip", which is basically a small curved length of metal shaped into a clip. This is always a temporary arrangement, however, as the paper clip is not quite strong enough to hold paper together against all the elements. Also, it is certainly not strong enough to hold something together without getting caught on something else entirely, and going off on its own merry way, at some point very early into its task.
Another major disadvantage of paper clips is thickness of what can be bound. The amount of paper that you can actually place inside a paper-clip and expect to leave in there is not very great at all. In fact, a few sheets are about it, before the clip starts to bend, or in extreme cases, snap.
In fact, paper clips only serve two real purposes in the modern world. The first is that of a lock-pick in spy films, and the second, which may have its roots in the first, is something that somebody can pick apart and unravel when they have nothing else to do.
For whatever reason, the most successful paper clip design, and the one that has become virtually synonymous with "paper clip," was never patented. Indeed, the concept of what has come to be known as the Gem clip clearly existed in the late nineteenth century because a patent was issued to William Middlebrook, of Waterbury, Connecticut, for a machine for making paper clips.
Middlebrook's 1899 patent incidentally shows that the Norwegian Johan Vaaler, who is normally credited with its invention, is not correct (the Vaaler patent was filed in 1901). While Vaaler and other turn-of-the-century inventors were in fact patenting all manner of shapes and sizes of paper clips, Middlebrook was patenting the means for forming the Gem clip economically. There could be many shapes of clip that can hold a pile of papers just about as well as, if not better than, a Gem, but the ability to manufacture the clips reliably and in large quantities is what would make or break a company.
Middlebrook's Machine for making paper clips (1899).
Johan Vaaler's paper clip patent (1901).
An "improved" design by Gifford (1903).
Inventors are always looking for things to improve, and for about a century the Gem has been the main target of criticism in patents for new and improved paper clips. For example, one clear challenge to the Gem was patented in 1934 and has come to be known as the Gothic clip, because its loops are pointed more to resemble Gothic arches than the rounded Romanesque ones of the Gem. Henry Lankenau's patent application for the "perfect Gem" also listed ease of applying to papers as one of the invention's advantages. More importantly, the Gothic clip has longer legs that extend almost to its squared end, thus reducing the possibility that their sharp ends would catch and tear paper. Since the danger of tearing papers or the pages of books is minimized with this clip, it can typically be made of heavier wire to give it better gripping power. While it is also more expensive, the Gothic clip is favored by some users, such as librarians, because of its distinct advantages.
Lankenau's Gothic clip design.
There are other ways to improve the paper clip, and among the most often tried is economizing on raw materials, a common object of engineering design and manufacturing. After the capital investment that goes into the machinery to make paper clips, the wire that is used is the single most controllable factor in determining cost and hence price. Starting with a piece of wire just ten percent shorter than what the competition uses to fashion its Gems can translate into an advantage in the office products catalog, especially if saving pennies on every box of paper clips is more important than how the clips look to a supply manager who orders them by the millions.
The standard Gem clip and a recent "economical" imitation.
A favorite pastime of some office workers is to doodle in wire by reshaping paper clips into all sorts of fanciful, and sometimes grotesque, new forms. Try your hand at deconstructing a Gem and designing a new paper clip.
How is your design an improvement on the Gem? List as many features as possible and evaluate your design against the Gem.
Does it have any less desirable qualities, such as reduced gripping power? Inventors often claim their improved designs for paper clips have superior gripping power to that of the prior art.
How could you determine in an objective way which of two paper clips has the greater gripping force under comparable conditions?
