‘Velcro’ the greatest invention of 20th century along with zipper

Velcro [Photo provided = Velcro official website]

Patent Application : Hook-and-loop fastener (US2717437A)

Year : 1951

Nation : The United Kingdom

Region : Manchester New Hampshire the United States

Name : George de Mestral (Swiss nationality)

There are things that we take their existence for granted because they are so common and seen everywhere. There is an invention that has contributed to clothing and stationary of today due to the small discovery of a Swiss man. In today’s IP encyclopedia we are going to check up on the intellectual property ‘Velcro’ which gives us useful daily life as much as zippers give.

When you try to put some jacket on in the cold winter sometimes it does not zip well. It gets worse when your hands are shaking in cold weather. In this case it is an efficient way to wear a jacket with Velcro instead of zippers. It functions quickly and efficiently in shoes we wear too.


The official name is ‘Hook-and-loop fastener’. But it is known as ‘Stickies’ among Koreans and ‘Velcro’ in abroad. ‘Velcro’ is a trademark named after ‘Velour’ and ‘Crochet’ which mean velvet and hook in French. Just like ‘Lego’ we know there are cases when common nouns became a proper noun.

Velcro was invented by Swiss electrician George de Mestral. He had an eye for invention well enough to apply for patent of toy airplane at the age of 12. In 1941 he went hiking to the Alps with his hunting dog and created Velcro. While walking through the trails the dog found a rabbit and ran into the forest. When they got back from hunting he found a lot of seeds of burdock sticking to his pants and the dog’s hair.

No matter how hard he tried to get rid of them they did not fall easily. He wondered how they stuck to hair so he got home and observe them with a microscope. Then he found hundreds of seeds with a shape of hook hanging on clothes and dog hair. The hook-shaped seeds were available to any types of hair such as clothes animal fur or hair and had strong adhesion.


In those days zippers or buttons were used to fasten or attach clothes together. However zippers were broken easily buttons were hard to put them into the holes and easily fell off from the clothes. George expected that he could make something from this burdock seeds that can replace zippers and buttons and would be common in many areas in the future.

Velcro technology did not pop out easily. George suggested his idea visiting many textile factories but his idea sounded negative at that point when they already have zippers and buttons and the raw materials were insufficient for producing hooks. Along the way he had been told from one of the textile factories in Lyon in France to use composite materials nylon and finally nylon hook came out.


The basic shape and materials were chosen but it did not mean all the problems were solved. The initial nylon Velcro was flexible and tenable but it was too sturdy to fall off. In addition it was impossible to put it to practical use because there was no factory to produce in large quantities. George could not come up with better idea even after spending months so he decided to visit the Alps for inspiration when he almost ready to give up.

He went to a barber shop in the village and he came up the idea to cut off the nylon hooks as he saw the barber shaving and cutting his clients’ hair. When the sturdy hooks get cut with scissors its strength of adhesion gets reduced and finally it becomes proper levels. The 10 years of patent battle with himself was finally ended.

In 1951 he eventually got a patent of his Velcro in Switzerland and opened a textile store in Europe including Germany Italy the Netherlands and Belgium. In 1957 he expanded his business to the textile center in New Hampshire the US thanks to the investment from a British businessman. Later the headquarter of Velcro was located in Manchester New Hampshire.


Even though Velcro was produced in all around the world it was still not able to avoid negative views. It was used in clothes and goods for kids with difficulties in hand moves but it was seen as a uneven and strange piece of cloth in clothing industry. However for the first time the value of Velcro was promoted by the American science community.

The aerospace industry often struggle with weightlessness. The workers in the space station are wearing bulky suits so it is uncomfortable to move body and hands. Furthermore thick gloves even make it hard to zip up or fasten buttons. Our hands feels numb as if we become like a kid but Velcro which was well known for kids’ products solved this problem.

It was used in many ways such as wearing Velcro suits attaching the food bags on wall and attaching their name tags and units on their arms and chests. From then on as skiing business and scuba diving business used Velcro and spread to many industries and finally clothing shoes and bags industries joined in using Velcro.


However George made one big mistake and lost his initiative of Velcro business. He forgot to renew his patent. In 1978 since his patent was expired cheap imitations were produced in Asia. He had been fighting with himself for his own patent development in past 10 years but now he had to fight with others over the patent. There was a campaign for him to guarantee his lifetime patent right but it was too late to do something because many replaceable patents were released in many other countries. The British businessman who invested for George at the beginning took over the business right and was running the company Velcro currently.

Velcro has a huge influence on our daily lives. Nowadays Velcro has been used in many different areas such as watch straps surgical gowns blood pressure measuring devices and darts for kids as his expectations. It is an intellectual property that completed after a hard development over 10 years but in his case we can learn that it can be easily stolen due to single mistake. We need to pay enough attention to protect our rights of patents renewals and independence of intellectual property.

Seeds of a burdock [Photo provided = Wikipedia]

Cut Velcro [Photo provided = Wikipedia]

Velcro [Photo provided = Velcro official website]

Velcro [Photo provided = Velcro official website]

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