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Fry then suggested to Nicholson and Silver that they were using the adhesive backwards.  Instead of sticking the adhesive to the bulletin board, they should “put it on a piece of paper and then we can stick it to anything.”

This initially proved easier said than done, in terms of practical application.  It was easy enough to get the adhesive on the paper, but the early prototypes had the problem that the adhesive would often detach from the paper and stay on the object the paper was stuck to, or, at least, leave some of the adhesive behind in this way.  There was no such problem with the bulletin boards Silver had made because he had specifically made them so that the adhesive would bond better with the board than the paper. Two other 3M employees now entered the scene, Roger Merrill and Henry Courtney.  The two were tasked with coming up with a coating that could be put on the paper to make the adhesive stay bonded to it and not be left behind on whatever the paper was stuck to when it was removed, a task at which they were ultimately successful at achieving. Interestingly, because management at 3M still didn’t think the product would be commercially successful, they more or less shelved it for three years, even though the Post-It notes were extremely popular internally at 3M labs during that span.    Finally, in 1977, 3M began running test sale runs of the Post-It note, then called “Press ‘n Peel”, in a certain areas in four different cities to see if people would buy and use the product.  It turned out, no one much did, which confirmed in the minds of the executives that it wasn’t a good commercial product.

This time, the re-order rate went from almost nothing, in the previous attempt, to 90% of the people and businesses that had received the free samples.  For reference, this was double the best initial rate 3M had ever seen for any other product they’d introduced.  Two years later, the Post-It note was released throughout the United States.

So after 5 years of constant rejection for the adhesive and another seven years in development and initial rejection, Post-It notes were finally a hit and have since become a mainstay in offices the world over, today being one of the top five best selling office supply products in the world.

Another obstacle in the initial launch of Post-It notes was that, because it was a completely new type of product, it required the construction of new machinery to mass produce the Post-It note pads, which was initially prohibitively expensive for a product seen by many within 3M as destined for commercial failure.

Post-It notes received an upgrade in 2003 when 3M launched a new version of the Post-It note with super sticky glue that has better adhesion to vertical surfaces.

 Post-It notes are occasionally used in art-work.  One such famous example was in 2008 when Shay Hovell used 12,000 Post-It notes to create a replica of the Mona Lisa.  The most expensive Post-It note art piece was done by R.B. Kitaj and sold for £640 (about $1000) in 2000.

received

Bachelor of Science from Hobart College before earning his Master of Science and Ph. D. from Cornell University.

Eastman Kodak from 1944–1973

Vice President of the company from 1973-1984.

1942, while searching for materials to make clear plastic gun sights, Coover and his team at Eastman Kodak first worked with cyanoacrylates, rejecting them as too sticky.

Nine years later,

1958, the adhesive, marketed by Kodak as Super Glue, was introduced for sale.

overseeing Kodak chemists investigating heat-resistant polymers for jet canopies when cyanoacrylates were once again tested and proved too sticky.

cyanoacrylate is an acrylic resin which rapidly polymerises in the presence of water (specifically hydroxide ions), forming long, strong chains, joining the bonded surfaces together.

Cyanoacrylate is used as a forensic tool to capture latent fingerprints on non-porous surfaces like glass, plastic, etc.

Chemical structure of methyl cyanoacrylate, the basis of Superglue

Coover was also the first to recognize and patent cyanoacrylates as a tissue adhesive.

Vietnam War to temporarily patch the internal organs of injured soldiers until conventional surgery could be performed,

460 patents, and Super Glue was just one of his many discoveries

Implemented at Kodak, programmed innovation resulted in the introduction of 320 new products and sales growth from $1.8 billion to $2.5 billion.

Coover received the Southern Chemist Man of the Year Award for his outstanding accomplishments in individual innovation and creativity.

2004,

inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame.

He also held the

He also held the

National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership

Chemical Research Management,

Maurice Holland Award

medalist for the Industrial Research Institute

natural causes

Kingsport, Tennessee

Delaware