Hook-and-loop fastener Mestral's patent expired, prompting a flood of low-cost imitations from Taiwan, China and South Korea onto the market. Today, the trademark is the subject of more than 300 trademark registrations in over 159 countries. George de Mestral was inducted into the national inventors hall of fame for his invention. The big breakthrough George de Mestral made was to think about hook-and-eye closures on a greatly reduced scale. Hook-and-eye fasteners have been common for centuries, but what was new about hook-and-loop fasteners was the miniaturisation of the hooks and eyes. Shrinking the hooks led to the two other important differences. Firstly,
Swiss coordinate system shift between the two datums is 3 metres on the ground, so most map and GPS users will not notice any difference. The easting and northing is increased by 2 and 1 million, respectively, resulting in 14-digit rather than 12-digit metre coordinates. Swiss coordinate system The Swiss coordinate system (or Swiss grid) is a geographic coordinate system used in Switzerland for maps and surveying by the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (Swisstopo). The map projection used is Oblique Mercator on an 1841 Bessel ellipsoid. The geodetic datum CH1903 (SRID 21781) uses as fundamental point the old observatory of Bern (