Ladislao Biro: The Inventor of the Ballpoint Pen

Economical and disposable, or finely built to last for years. A daily work tool, or a casual resource. The ballpoint pen is a wonderful invention, one we can undoubtedly declare universal. So how was it born? Where does it come from? To better understand the modern ballpoint pen, we must know the story of a Hungarian journalist and inventor who fled to Argentina during World War II. Of course, I'm referring to Ladislao Biro.

Yes, from a technical point of view it must be noted that Biro did not invent the concept of the ballpoint pen. The first patent was granted to John J. Loud in 1888 (eleven years before Biro's birth), with the difference that his design was aimed at use on harder surfaces such as leather and wood, where fountain pens don't work. However, Loud's pen was not commercially viable. People wanted to write letters and notes, not draw on leather.

A Journalist's Problem

Fast forward to the early 20th century, when a young Ladislao José Biro or László József Bíró (born László József Schweiger on September 29, 1899) began working as a journalist. Available information suggests that Biro had trouble with his pen because he was left-handed (all of us lefties understand this "very" well), but he discovered that the ink used in newspaper printing dried much faster and remained free of smudges. Biro tried using that same ink with his pen, but the liquid wouldn't flow due to its viscosity.

The Invention and Patent

Joining forces with his brother György, a chemist, they managed to design a new tip based on a ball rotating inside a socket, which picks up ink from the cartridge and deposits it on paper. The first presentation of their device was at the Budapest International Fair in 1931, and it received its corresponding patent in Paris seven years later. Unfortunately, World War II blew Europe apart, and as members of a Hungarian Jewish family, the Biro brothers were forced to escape to Argentina, a process apparently facilitated by the country's former president Agustín Pedro Justo, and a very close friend of Biro, inventor Juan Jorge Meyne.

On June 17, 1943, Biro presented US patent 2390636, titled "Writing Instrument", and formed the company Biro, Meyne & Biro. Locally, Biro's invention was much better known as the "Birome", a combination of the Biro surname with Meyne's. At first, distributors didn't take Biro's pen very seriously and insisted on offering it to the public as a toy, but the virtues of the "birome" (indelible ink, almost immediate drying, and compatibility with carbon paper) soon materialized. In fact, you'll most likely hear an Argentine talk about "biromes" rather than "bolígrafos".

The Birome Takes Off

This is where the information becomes a bit contradictory. In 1943, Eversharp Faber acquired a license to manufacture Biro's pen, but the turning point was the intervention of Marcel Bich and his company BIC. Some say it was in 1945, and others in 1951 (Ed.: both would be erroneous, because the BIC Cristal debuted in 1950). The point is that BIC popularized low-cost versions of the ballpoint pen, with more than 100 billion units sold worldwide.

Legacy

Ladislao Biro passed away in Buenos Aires on October 24, 1985, at the age of 86. Despite its apparent simplicity, his ballpoint pen changed forever the way humans work and express themselves, even in the digital age.