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During a presentation by attorneys Richard Beem and Mark Partridge to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) on March 19, 2005, an engineer asked the excellent question, “Was the common paper clip (referring to the ubiquitous loop-within-a-loop design) ever patented?”  The following answer was given in brief during the presentation and is set forth in greater detail here for the benefit of the reader of this web page.

Henry Petroski’s excellent book, The Evolution of Useful Things (available through booksellers and libraries), offers a fascinating history of the invention of everyday items, including a whole chapter on paper clips, one of which (the common paper clip) is shown on the front cover.  Petroski, a professor of civil engineering at Duke University, tells the fascinating story of how paper clips grew out of “pin” technology, in which rapid advances helped to define the industrial revolution. 

Two or more centuries ago, pins were so valuable that future president John Adams bought treasured supplies of them for his beloved wife Abigail (who closed her letters, "P.S., John, send pins") when he attended the Constitutional Congress in Philadelphia.  Pins were so valuable that they were tantamount to currency; they were used by the industrious Abigail Adams for barter.  See the recent popular book entitled John Adams.

Based on the same technology as pins, formed from spring metal wire, various designs of paper clips were patented in the 1800’s and 1900’s, but it seems that the “Gem” paper clip (the “loop within a loop” that we all know) was never patented in its own right.  A machine for making Gem paper clips (as shown in a patent drawing) was patented in 1899.  Henry Petroski reasonably deduces that the design of the clip itself probably was already known to the public by that time, otherwise, the clip design itself would or at least should have been claimed.

It is a sad truth (at least from the inventor’s perspective) that the inventors of seemingly minor improvements like the Gem paper clip sometimes go unrecognized and unrewarded by patents never filed.  See Improvement Patents (in this web site).  The true significance of such unpatented inventions becomes known only years later, but the names (and the fortunes) of "unpatented inventors" often, as here, are lost forever in the blur of unrecorded history.