<P> In March 1970, Larry D. Nichols invented a 2 × 2 × 2 "Puzzle with Pieces Rotatable in Groups" and filed a Canadian patent application for it . Nichols's cube was held together by magnets . Nichols was granted U.S. Patent 3,655,201 on 11 April 1972, two years before Rubik invented his Cube . </P> <P> On 9 April 1970, Frank Fox applied to patent his "Spherical 3 × 3 × 3". He received his UK patent (1344259) on 16 January 1974 . </P> <P> In the mid-1970s, Ernő Rubik worked at the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest . Although it is widely reported that the Cube was built as a teaching tool to help his students understand 3D objects, his actual purpose was solving the structural problem of moving the parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart . He did not realise that he had created a puzzle until the first time he scrambled his new Cube and then tried to restore it . Rubik obtained Hungarian patent HU170062 for his "Magic Cube" in 1975 . Rubik's Cube was first called the Magic Cube (Bűvös kocka) in Hungary . </P> <P> The first test batches of the Magic Cube were produced in late 1977 and released in Budapest toy shops . Magic Cube was held together with interlocking plastic pieces that prevented the puzzle being easily pulled apart, unlike the magnets in Nichols's design . With Ernő Rubik's permission, businessman Tibor Laczi took a Cube to Germany's Nuremberg Toy Fair in February 1979 in an attempt to popularise it . It was noticed by Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer and they signed a deal with Ideal Toys in September 1979 to release the Magic Cube worldwide . Ideal wanted at least a recognisable name to trademark; of course, that arrangement put Rubik in the spotlight because the Magic Cube was renamed after its inventor in 1980 . The puzzle made its international debut at the toy fairs of London, Paris, Nuremberg and New York in January and February 1980 . </P>

Who invented the rubik's cube and why
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