László József Schweiger

English project by Dobrin Alessandra Francesca

Clasa a IX-a B
Inventor of the
ballpoint pen

László József Schweiger (Bíró)

29 September 1899 – 24 October 1985,
Hispanicized as Ladislao José Biro, was a Hungarian-
Argentine inventor who patented the first
commercially successful modern ballpoint pen. The
first ballpoint pen had been invented roughly 50
years earlier by John J. Loud, but it was not a
commercial success. He worked as an editor in
Hungarian newspapers Hongrie-Magyarország-
Hungary.
 Biro invented the ballpoint in 1938. The new invention
was so exciting that when ballpoint pens were first sold
in the US in 1945, hundreds of people lined up to buy
them despite the fact that they cost more than $150 in
today’s dollars. The pens were advertised as "miraculous"
and given that they replaced fountain pens that required
frequent refills and could easily leak ink
 Biro wasn’t the first to come up with a
ballpoint pen but his was the first to really
catch on
Ballpoint pens date from the late 19th
century. His ballpoint pen, commonly called
the “biro,” became popular in Great Britain
during the late 1930s, and by the mid-1940s
pens of this type were widely used
throughout much of the world.
The invention may even have helped save
Biro’s life and that of his family during
World War II, as he fled persecution by the
Nazis.
The writing tip of a ballpoint pen consists
of a metal ball, housed in a socket, that
rotates freely and rolls quick-drying ink
onto the writing surface. The ball is
constantly bathed in ink from a reservoir,
one end of which is open and attached to
the writing tip
 The ballpoint pens
While writing he had problem with ink from fountain pens because it dried slowly
and often smudge. He also noticed that the ink used in newspaper printing presses
dried quickly and didn’t smudge. He tried filling printing ink in a fountain pen to
use it for writing but the ink was too viscous and it would clog the pen. So the ink
was good but the pen had to change. Idea for a pen came from a 40 years old
invention of John J. Loud, inventor from Weymouth, Massachusetts.

General idea was used by Bíró László and his brother György who was a chemist.
They together experimented and tried to make new type of pen. They combined a
new type of viscous ink and a ball-socket mechanism with a smaller ball, this time,
which prevented ink from drying inside the pen and controlled the flow of ink. Ball
was placed in a socket at the tip of the pen but it could rotate freely, collect ink
from the reservoir and leave it as a mark on the surface across which it is dragged.
They presented their pen at the Budapest International Fair in 1931 and patented it
in 1938.
 During the Second
World War, United
Kingdom likened
manufacture of Biro
ballpoint pens for use
in airplanes. Royal Air
Force aircrew used
them because they
don’t leak on high
altitudes and low
pressures like
fountain pens.
In 1941 the Bíró brothers (being Jewish at the begining
of the Second World War) and a friend, Juan Jorge
Meyne, fled to Argentina. They formed there Bíró Pens
of Argentina and filed a new patent in 1943. They sold
their pen in Argentina under the name Birome (which
comes from Bíró and Meyne) and even today ballpoint
pens are known in Argentina as Birome.
Thank you for your patience!
♡