On May 12, 1958, Velcro was first trademarked. The fastening, which holds together everything from shoes to life vests, is, of course, still in wide use today.

The hook-and-loop fastener was invented in 1941 by Swiss engineer George de Mestral, who got the idea after a hunting trip on which he observed the burrs (seeds) of burdock that kept sticking to his clothes and his dog’s fur. He examined them under a microscope, and noted their hundreds of "hooks" that caught on anything with a loop, such as clothing, animal fur, or hair.

De Mestral wanted to recreate the hooks and loops as a material, though he had a hard time getting people to take him seriously. He went to Lyon, France, which was the center of weaving at the time, with his idea. He finally got a weaver to help him, and through trial and error decided on nylon as the fabric for his invention. Nylon had only recently been invented, so much experimentation was necessary.

Eventually, de Mestral discovered that when sewn under hot infrared light, nylon forms hooks that were perfect for the hook side of the fastener. Though he had figured out how to make the hooks, he had yet to figure out a way to make the looped side. He found that nylon thread, when woven in loops and heat-treated, retains its shape and is resilient. However, the loops had to be cut in just the right spot so that they could be fastened and unfastened many times. At the end of his rope, de Mestral simply took a pair of scissors and cut off the tops of the loops, which created hooks that would match up perfectly with the loops in the pile.

De Mestral then set about mechanizing the process of creating the hooks and loops, which took him ten more years. Finally, he submitted his idea for patent in Switzerland in 1951 and the patent was granted in 1955. In 1957 he branched out to the textile center of Manchester, New Hampshire in the United States. After gaining attention as the "zipperless zipper," Velcro was trademarked on May 13, 1958.

Today, Velcro is an example of a genericized trademark — a brand name that has become the generic term for a type of product. The term "Velcro" is now used to refer to any type of fastening modeled off of de Mestral’s original Velcro, even if the fastening is not produced by the Velcro company. It is also sometimes used as a verb – to velcro something!