(FORTUNE Magazine) – We all hate CD jewel boxes. They're hard to open, their hinges snap, and those little plastic hubs that hold the disk inevitably break. Who is responsible for the jewel box, paragon of consumer packaging at its absolute worst? We don't know, frankly; the patent is held by Philips, the Dutch electronics giant, but the name of the individual who developed the box is lost in the mists of time.

But we do know who came up with that incredibly annoying white adhesive "top spine" label (whose chief benefit is that it's at least better than its predecessor, the metallic "dog bone" closure): one Mr. Larry Schnapf. Frustrated with the dog bone's "aggressive adhesive," Schnapf, then a VP of new technologies at PolyGram, invented the polystyrene top spine in 1994. The industry quickly adopted it for three reasons: It prevents store theft by sealing the two lids together; it allows consumers to read the artist and title info without having to pull the disks out of record-store bins; and it facilitates inventory, since it's printed with a bar code. Unfortunately, Schnapf never patented his invention. "If I had," he says, "I'd be talking to you from a rubber boat floating in a pool somewhere." And another gripe about that top spine: Why doesn't that little "Pull" tab actually work? An executive at a major label, who insists on anonymity, admits, "We make it so you can't get it off real easy." (By the way, regarding the plastic wrapper that CDs come in: Ever wonder why there's no pull strip to make removing the wrapper easy? Well, it turns out pull strips were abandoned when crybaby artists at the major labels complained that the tabs obscured the cover art.)

So if the jewel box is such a horror, why hasn't anyone come up with something better? Actually, people have tried: More than 25 would-be improvements have been filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. But, says that anonymous record exec, changing the box would be expensive. And when it comes down to paying Britney Spears or saving wear-and-tear on your cuticles, there's no contest.

--Tyler Maroney