László Bíró

Who was László Bíró?

Bíró László József was the inventor of the modern ballpoint pen.

Bíró was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1899 into a Jewish family. He presented the first production of the ballpoint pen at the Budapest International Fair in 1931. While working as a journalist in Hungary, he noticed that the ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge-free. He tried using the same ink in a fountain pen but found that it would not flow into the tip, as it was too viscous. Working with his brother György, a chemist, he developed a new tip consisting of a ball that was free to turn in a socket, and as it turned it would pick up ink from a cartridge and then roll to deposit it on the paper. Bíró patented the invention in Paris in 1938.

In 1943 the brothers moved to Argentina. On 10 June they filed another patent, that issued in the USA as US Patent 2,390,636 and formed Biro Pens of Argentina. This new design was licensed for production in the United Kingdom for supply to Royal Air Force aircrew, who found they worked much better than fountain pens at high altitude.