A ballpoint pen, also known as a "biro" and "ball pen", is a pen that dispenses ink over a metal ball at its point, i.e. over a "ball point". The metal commonly used is steel, brass, or tungsten carbide.It was conceived and developed as a cleaner and more reliable alternative to quill and fountain pens, and it is now the world's most-used writing instrument:millions are manufactured and sold daily.As a result, it has influenced art and graphic design and spawned an artwork genre.
BALL POINT PEN The first patent for a ballpoint pen was issued on 30 October 1888, to John J. Loud, a leather tanner, who was attempting to make a writing instrument that would be able to write on his leather products, which then-common fountain pens could not. Loud's pen had a small rotating steel ball, held in place by a socket. Although it could be used to mark rough surfaces such as leather, as Loud intended, it proved to be too coarse for letter-writing. With no commercial viability, its potential went unexploited and the patent eventually lapsed. László Bíró, a Hungarian newspaper editor frustrated by the amount of time that he wasted filling up fountain pens and cleaning up smudged pages, noticed that inks used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge free. He decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. BÃró enlisted the help of his brother György, a chemist, to develop viscous ink formulas for new ballpoint designs. In 1941 the BÃró brothers and a friend, Juan Jorge Meyne, fled Germany and moved to Argentina, where they formed BÃró Pens of Argentina and filed a new patent in 1943. Their pen was sold in Argentina as the Birome (portmanteau of the names BÃró and Meyne), which is how ballpoint pens are still known in that country. This new design was licensed by the British, who produced ball point pens for RAF aircrew as the Biro. Ballpoint pens were found to be more versatile than fountain pens, especially at high altitudes where fountain pens were prone to ink-leakage.
