Clipped!

Convinced her product was a winner, Linda Froehlich set about getting her patented invention onto store shelves--only to find them soon crowded with knockoffs

A couple of years ago, Linda Froehlich stepped into a hotel elevator in Rome with a handsome stranger. She knew she had seen the man, whom she describes as "kind of cute," somewhere before, but she couldn't quite place him. When they reached the lobby, and the door opened to reveal a crush of press, Froehlich suddenly realized she had been standing shoulder to shoulder with none other than John F. Kennedy Jr.

Not about to let a paparazzi pileup distract her, Froehlich immediately introduced herself to Kennedy: "Hi, I'm Linda Froehlich, and I'm the inventor of the SuperClip." She assured him that she'd be sending some samples to his room later that day.

It was the clearest signal to date--even beyond his designation as People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive"--that JFK Jr. was part of a privileged crowd. After all, Froehlich has sent SuperClips to Barbara Walters, Rush Limbaugh, and Andy Rooney. She's handed them out to Bob and Elizabeth Dole--twice--and she told then-congresswoman Susan Molinari, who was visiting her plant, "You've got a lot of energy--you should come to work for me and help sell SuperClips." (Molinari ultimately opted for a lower-profile spot cohosting CBS Saturday Morning.) Froehlich has also targeted the paper-shuffler-in-chief as a potential recipient. "I'm thinking of sending a truckload to the White House. Think of it--40,000 pounds of SuperClips," says Froehlich. "That would make a statement."

Of course, plenty of people have encountered Froehlich's invention without having to endure her spiel. Four inches long, the SuperClip is little more than a very large paper clip. Still, it neatly holds 100 sheets of paper. Made from a sturdy, high-carbon steel, it's easier to use and less bulky than so-called bulldog or butterfly clips.

Froehlich's simple creation--for which she and her husband, Richard, were awarded a patent in July 1994--is now carried by all the office-supply biggies: Office Depot Inc. (582 stores, $6.1 billion in sales), Staples Inc. (600 stores, $4 billion), and OfficeMax (640 stores, $3.2 billion). Dominant discount retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Kmart Corp., and Target Stores stock it, too.

But a closer look reveals that, in fact, what most of them are selling are not SuperClips but knockoffs so similar that they would seem to infringe upon U.S. patent number 5329672, owned by the Froehlichs. Go to those stores and you can buy all the Mega Clips, Big Clips, Jumbo Clips, and Really Big Clips you want, but you'd be hard-pressed to get your hands on one genuine SuperClip.

For Linda Froehlich, the SuperClip saga has amounted to little more than the nightmare of so many dollars running through her fingers like so much sand in the form of potential sales that never materialized. At one point, she seemed poised to crack the mainstream market, after an early sale to Office Depot. But she soon learned a bitter truth: the office-supply industry is dominated by a handful of very large companies, which are best equipped to do business with one another. They have found it easy to design around her patent, and they have not hesitated to do so. And that has shattered Froehlich's belief that ingenuity, virtue, and effort would see her through.

"I felt everyone would love this product as I have," she laments. "I was naïve. I believed this product was so good I wouldn't have a problem."

Good as she thinks it is, the SuperClip is hardly a quantum leap over "the prior art," to borrow from patent argot. By routinely referring to it as "the next Post-It," Froehlich seems to be acknowledging that her creation borrows from the undeniably apparent but may yield the sort of windfall that every inventor dreams about. "This is the best product since 3M's Post-It note," she declares. "It's a product that should have always been. It's the obvious staring us in the face."

Too obvious perhaps. The Froehlichs' SuperClip patent makes two claims of uniqueness: First, that the clip is made from a high-carbon steel that springs back to its original shape; second, that the clip's "arms" are extended the length of the clip, so they won't tear the paper when removed. (See "What Makes the SuperClip So Super?" page 102.) In truth, most consumers probably don't care about such features; to them, all paper clips are created alike, no matter what their dimension.

In contrast to the speculative fling embodied in the SuperClip, the Froehlichs run a solid and time-tested family business with the homey sounding name of Ace Wire Spring & Form Co., in McKees Rocks, Pa., a gritty industrial suburb of Pittsburgh. For nearly 60 years Ace has served as a custom manufacturer of wire forms such as bucket handles and paper racks, and of springs that go into everything from screen doors to M-1 tanks. It employs 50 people and rings up annual sales of more than $5 million.

Froehlich's father started the company in 1939, selling it to her and Richard when he retired, 21 years ago. Aside from the SuperClip--which Froehlich began noodling with 15 years ago, after a customer requested an oversize paper clip mounted on a wooden base as a paper holder--Ace has nothing to do with the office-supply business. It operates in markets where its ability to add value by manufacturing high-quality custom parts in relatively low volume has earned it loyal customers.

Ace's core markets are--as Froehlich now concedes--the antithesis of the office-supply industry, where consolidation has grown so frenzied that last year the Federal Trade Commission quashed Staples' efforts to acquire Office Depot, out of fear the merger would restrain trade. On the manufacturing and distribution side of the industry, the story is similar, with equally huge billion-dollar concerns such as Viking, Acco Products, United Stationers, and S.P. Richards dominating what amounts to a commodity business. In the office-supply business, you add value by delivering a lot of product at a low price.