James Ward has an unusual attachment to paper clips. And when he sees one, he sees "a piece of art, but it's also a piece of useful art." And like any serious art appreciator, he is also a collector.

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The paper clip is something of a fetish object in design circles. Its spare, machined aesthetic and its inexpensive ubiquity landed it a spot in MoMA’s 2004 show Humble Masterpieces. This was a ...

In the patent literature, the term "prior art" is virtually synonymous with "state of the art," the standard against which any claimed improvement is necessarily judged. Normally, "state of the art" ...

The paper clip might seem like an ordinary object in your stationery drawer, but its simplicity hides a surprisingly rich history and wide range of uses. Designed to hold sheets of paper together, ...

People have fastened sheets of paper together more or less permanently ever since the Chinese invented the stuff in the first or second century A.D. Yet according to the Early Office Museum, the first ...