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-system tournament each other twice. The first national event in the United States to use the Swiss system was in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1945; and the first Chess Olympiad using it was held in Haifa in 1976. In chess, the terms Swiss and Monrad are both used, and denote systems with different pairing algorithms. The Monrad pairing system is commonly used in Denmark and Norway, while most of the rest of the world uses one of the Swiss systems defined by FIDE. In most other sports, only one format is used, and is known either as Monrad or Swiss. Curling uses