In 1943 a patent for a functional ballpoint pen was filed on June 10 by the brothers László and György Bíró.
The idea of the ballpoint pen was first patented by John J. Loud in 1888. This was a pen as we know today with the rolling ball in a socket distributing the ink along the ball. But it was not very good for writing on something as smooth as paper and too coarse to even make letters. It was a mere marking tool and didn’t really catch on. Other developers also struggled with the right balance of the right ink with the right ball rotation, without any pesky ink leakage. The idea of the ball was clearly not enough. The devilish details of fine tuning provided enough challenge to delay the joy of writing without an inkwell until the next century. It took the collaboration of a newspaper editor, László Bíró, with the expertise with dentist equipment of György Bíró, to develop the pen that we still love to use today. The pen that needs no dipping in ink, that would not leak even in air planes or even in space and had no pesky sharp ends. The pen with the rolling ball that provided writing so smooth, that everyone could handle any ballpoint pen and would need to get used to its specific angles and flow.
I have a new pen. It writes underwater. It writes other words too very well.
