There is a lot of interest in super-strong glazing, from the beautiful structural glass systems used for shop facades and curtain walls to the thin and ridiculously strong glass screens used by every smartphone manufacturer to handle everyday use.

Any technological advancement, even if intended for relatively small uses of glass can have a big impact, which leads to a huge question of what could have been had Superfest become a worldwide success instead of being limited to half a country.

Created in the German Democratic Republic (then part of the Soviet Union) in 1977, Superfest used a similar technique of exchanging sodium ions for potassium ions to increase the surface tension of the glass surface and make glazed products that were significantly stronger than before.

The process the East German researchers used was very similar to the production techniques that are used to make Gorilla Glass and it was very quickly escalated through the Council of Ministers as they presumed that a glass with 15 times the lifespan of conventional glass of the era would be a desirable export.

Once it started being produced in 1980, it was very successful in East Germany, and 120m were made between then and 1st July 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the slow winding down of the East German glass industry under Treuhand.

Whilst other East German companies were privatised and continued under new ownership, Superfest was a victim of its own strengths.

Whilst pub owners and retailers loved glasses that would not immediately shatter into a thousand pieces, the conventional wisdom at the time was that a glass that was too strong would actually reduce sales and it was thus unprofitable to retain a better technology.

It would take until 2007 and the iPhone for a glasslike Superfest to become popular, and structural glass is now a key innovative design priority.

It does make people wonder, however, whether glass technology could have advanced even further if they had a Gorilla Glass-like solution three decades earlier.