diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.2.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.2.txt
index e0a8065d9a507..d89422631ed04 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.2.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.20.2.txt
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ Indexing
 I/O
 ^^^
 
-
+- Bug that would force importing of the clipboard routines unecessarily, potentially causing an import error on startup (:issue:`16288`)
 
 
 Plotting
diff --git a/pandas/core/generic.py b/pandas/core/generic.py
index 27a489293db8f..b72f83ce723cc 100644
--- a/pandas/core/generic.py
+++ b/pandas/core/generic.py
@@ -1382,8 +1382,8 @@ def to_clipboard(self, excel=None, sep=None, **kwargs):
           - Windows: none
           - OS X: none
         """
-        from pandas.io.clipboard import clipboard
-        clipboard.to_clipboard(self, excel=excel, sep=sep, **kwargs)
+        from pandas.io import clipboards
+        clipboards.to_clipboard(self, excel=excel, sep=sep, **kwargs)
 
     def to_xarray(self):
         """
diff --git a/pandas/io/api.py b/pandas/io/api.py
index 7f0d3c3631f63..a4a25b78942db 100644
--- a/pandas/io/api.py
+++ b/pandas/io/api.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 # flake8: noqa
 
 from pandas.io.parsers import read_csv, read_table, read_fwf
-from pandas.io.clipboard.clipboard import read_clipboard
+from pandas.io.clipboards import read_clipboard
 from pandas.io.excel import ExcelFile, ExcelWriter, read_excel
 from pandas.io.pytables import HDFStore, get_store, read_hdf
 from pandas.io.json import read_json
diff --git a/pandas/io/clipboard/clipboard.py b/pandas/io/clipboards.py
similarity index 100%
rename from pandas/io/clipboard/clipboard.py
rename to pandas/io/clipboards.py