The iconic yellow color was also a matter of happenstance. They would look at it, peel it off and play with it, and then go out and buy a pad for themselves.” “It was always a self-advertising product because customers would put the notes on documents they sent to others, arousing the recipient’s curiosity. Once Post-it notes were in consumers’ hands it was “like a virus,” said Fry. After a rebranding of the name Post-it launched in Boise Idaho and 90% of the consumers who tested the product said they would buy it. 3M launched the product in four cities but initially used the name Press ‘n Peel. The two began to use Post-its around the office and in their personal lives they soon realized the huge potential that it had.įry took the invention to the 3M headquarters directly and it went off from there. Fry came to Silver with an idea for the note and a partnership began. He attended a seminar Silver hosted and remembered Silver had exactly what he was dreaming of. Microspheres are defined as “a microscopic hollow sphere, especially of a protein or synthetic polymer.” These spheres look like the bumps on a basketball under a microscope which helps them stick, unstick, and stick again.Īrthur Fry, a chemical engineer at 3M, and singer in his church’s choir, constantly tried to mark the pages of his hymn book but needed something, besides tape, he could stick to paper without damaging the pages. This new adhesive used microspheres which were sticky enough to stick to objects over and over, but not sticky enough to damage the surface. In the process of trying to develop a stronger adhesive for 3M Silver accidentally created a new adhesive. “It was part of my job as a researcher to develop new adhesives, and at that time we wanted to develop bigger, stronger, tougher adhesives,” unfortunately, he had difficulty developing exactly what 3M wanted. Silver originally sought to develop a better, stronger adhesive. Spencer Silver worked as a scientist for 3M. On March 16, 1993, Arthur Fry was granted the patent for REPOSITIONAL PRESSURE-SENSITIVE ADHESIVE SHEET MATERIAL, U.S.
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