The European Patent Office (EPO) last week honoured Germany’s Artur Fischer (94), the inventor of wall plugs, with the European Inventor Award 2014 in the lifetime achievement category. Fischer is one of the world’s most prolific inventors, with more than 1,100 applications for patents and utility models in Germany alone and countless more around the world.
Fischer is best known for his plastic wall plug, or screw anchor, whose two halves expand when a screw is driven into it, and whose fins wedge against the interior of the drill hole to keep the plug from turning.
Invented in 1958, it allows screws to be fastened in materials that normally wouldn’t support heavy objects.
The plug revolutionised the construction industry, the EPO noted, and is now one of the world’s most frequently used building supplies. About 14 million of them are produced every day.
Other inventions Fischer received his first patent in 1949 for the photographic flash cube with shutter synchronisation. A long list of inventions and patents followed: from cup holders and CD boxes to storage trays, ventilation nozzles and his Fischertechnik construction toy.
The construction-toy sets were so precise, the EPO said, that engineers used them to simulate industrial robotics and build models of computer-controlled production plants.
“As a child, I always wanted to be an engineer,” Fischer recalled.
After graduating from high school, Fischer trained as a metalworker and then went off to World War II.
In 1948 Fischer founded Fischerwerke GmbH, a world leader in a variety of fixing-system segments.
