Who patented the 'Zip fastener' in 1893?
Zipper a true slide fastener. Forty-two years later, in 1893 Whitcomb Judson, who invented a pneumatic street railway, marketed a "Clasp Locker". The device served as a (more complicated) hook-and-eye shoe fastener. With the support of businessman Colonel Lewis Walker, Judson launched the Universal Fastener Company to manufacture the new device. The clasp locker had its public debut at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and met with little commercial success. Judson is sometimes given credit as the inventor of the zipper, but he never made a practical device. The Universal Fastener Company moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1901, reorganized as
Button-Fastener case According to Button-Fastener, Eureka persuaded Button-Fastener's customers to disobey the notices on the machines. Button-Fastener sued Eureka Specialty Co. for alleged infringement of its patents. In its pleadings, Button-Fastener described its business model of selling its patented machine only on condition that buyers of the machines obtain all their staples from Button-Fastener. It stated that notwithstanding its knowledge of this, Eureka "manufacture[d] staples adapted only for use in the machines so sold by [Button-Fastener], and persuade[d] the users of the machines to buy and use them in violation of the above-mentioned restriction." Eureka responded to the suit with a "demurrer"