Ballpoint Pen

A ballpoint pen is a writing instrument that dispenses ink, usually in paste form, over a small rotating ball at its tip, and it has become the most widely used writing instrument in the world. The American inventor John J. Loud patented the first ballpoint design in 1888 as a tool for marking rough surfaces such as leather, but it proved too coarse for ordinary writing and was never commercially successful. A pen usable for everyday writing was developed decades later by the Hungarian journalist Laszlo Biro, who filed a British patent in 1938 after seeking an ink that would dry quickly and resist smudging on paper.