When you think about images of the first writing instruments, you envision charcoal, paint brushes and quill pens. The image of Shakespeare dipping a quill pen into an ink well come to mind. The ink smeared, it blotched and it took time to dry. You know the sign of a writer by the ink all over their hands (and their poverty, of course). The poverty part is still true, about the starving writer, right?
There are many key inventions related to the pen, but none so significant as the ball-point pen. The most significant developments involving the ballpoint pen can be traced to Hungarian inventor László Jozsef Bíró. Stephen Brackman provides a great history of ball-point invention and the patent history at IPWatchdog.
