Who invented the PageKeeper, and why?

It was a quiet afternoon and Scott Capamaggio was home alone reading when the doorbell rang. It was followed by a knock, and the door opened, as Scott's mother-in-law walked in and interrupted both his thought pattern and his reading. Unconsciously, he closed his book and laid it on the floor so he could talk to her.

After she left he went back to his book to find that he not only lost his place, but also the paper bookmark he was using. Scott immediately thought to himself that in this day and age there should be a better way to mark your place in a book.

Armed with this frustration he went down to his basement and started tinkering around until he made a bookmark. It didn't work as well as he would have liked, but it gave him the idea of what he would need to do to make it effective. "Something that looks simple now," Scott says, "took months to perfect".

The hardest part was creating the spring. It would have to be able to move in all directions, yet hold firmly onto the page being marked. It also had to be easily assembled to the clasp that would have to hold onto both hardcover and paperback books.

Mr. Capamaggio recalls weeks later he was lying in bed when it came to him how the spring would have to be formed. "I jumped out of bed and went to work on inventing the spring portion of the PageKeeper," he says. He had previously purchased several different types of wire and metal. With these he was able to form the first PageKeeper. He then rushed off to the patent attorney.

The first PageKeeper springs were manufactured with fixtures made of wood and nails. He contracted clips to be made to his specifications, had cards printed that he attached to the top of small bags, and went out to see if they would sell. After selling several hundred dollars worth to area stores in the first day, he was convinced he had a viable, usable and sellable product.

The rest is history. Or should we say, history in the making.