Tipp-Ex

Tipp-Ex is a brand of correction fluid and other related products that is popular throughout Europe. It was also the name of the German company (Tipp-Ex GmbH & Co. KG) that produced the products in the Tipp-Ex line. Tipp-Ex is a trademark for correction products. In some countries it has become a genericised trademark: to tippex or to tippex out means to erase, either generally or with correction fluid.

Tipp-Ex correction paper was invented by Wolfgang Dabisch from Eltville/Germany, who filed a patent in 1958 on Colored film for the correction of typing errors (German:Tippfehler). He subsequently founded a company of the same name. Shortly after that a Tipp-Ex Sales & Distribution company (Tipp-Ex Vertrieb GmbH & Co. KG) was founded in Frankfurt/Germany, by Otto Carls. This company still exists under the name of Tipp-Ex GmbH & Co. KG close to Frankfurt. Tipp-Ex became a registered trademark with the German patent office in 1987.

Earlier, in 1951, Bette Nesmith Graham invented the first correction fluid in her kitchen and began marketing the product in 1956 as Mistake Out, later called Liquid Paper. Tipp-Ex GmbH only started to produce white correction fluid in 1965 under the brand Tipp-Ex, but also as C-fluid.

The name "Tipp-Ex" is based on "tippen", the German word for "to type", and "" short Latin for "out".

As a result of the invention of Tipp-Ex, it became possible to erase a typographical error typed with a typewriter. The typewriter would be backspaced to the letter that was to be changed, the correction paper would be placed in front of the ribbon, and the mistyped letter would be re-typed. The system only worked if the typewriter repositioned the re-typed letter in exactly the same place as originally typed, which could be problematic if returning to a previous line.

Demand for this correction paper grew very quickly and brought interest from both German and international distributors.

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