Innovation of the day: The ballpoint pen

By Sarah Robson, August 5, 2011 @ 9:37 am

[Photo credit]

Who: Laszlo Biro (Hungary)

Innovation: Ballpoint pen

What does it do?

It is a device to write with. There's an internal ink reservoir, and the ball at the point of the pen allows the ink to be dispersed as the ball rolls across the page.

What problem does it solve?

Biro was a newspaper editor, and he was frustrated by the amount of time he whittled away filling up fountain pens, cleaning up messes left by fountain pens, and the rips in pages torn by fountain pens. The ballpoint pen makes for a much less fraught office environment.

A success?

Stop. Have a look around you. Can you see a ballpoint pen lying around nearby? There's a high chance you've answered "yes"' to this question. They're a modern day necessity. I don't care for your fancy iPads and iPhones; give me a pen and a piece of paper and I'll be happy.

Do you have an innovation to share? Enter the Innovator Awards and you could be up in lights.

Comments

Simon Heaters

March 19, 2012 @ 7:26 pm

The ballpoint pen definitely made things a lot more convenient for people, and it is an invention that cannot be ignored. Who hasn’t used one before anyway? I am sure there are lots of people who has never used an iPhone.

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