SCREWED UP? MOI?

I’m on a roll here, so I’m sticking with the Phillips head screw. It is, of course, named after an Oregon businessman name of Henry F Phillips. But Phillips didn’t invent the thing, that was down to a bloke called John Thompson. But as a marketer, Thompson made a great inventor, and he couldn’t interest industry in his new screw. That’s where Phillips stepped in in 1935, buying the design from Thompson. Phillips’ genius was that he could see the possibilities in the thing, and he was a pretty sharp salesman, too. In fact, by 1940, 85 per cent of all screw-makers in the USA had licensed the design.