the biro brothers patented the first commercially successful ballpoint pen.
the biro brothers patented the first commercially successful ballpoint pen.
who patented the first commercially successful ballpoint pen?
the biro brothers
during the same period, american entrepreneur milton reynolds came across a birome ballpoint pen during a business trip to buenos aires, argentina. recognizing commercial potential, he purchased several ballpoint samples, returned to the united states, and founded the reynolds international pen company. reynolds bypassed the birome patent with sufficient design alterations to obtain an american patent, beating eversharp and other competitors to introduce the pen to the us market. debuting at gimbels department store in new york city on 29 october 1945, for us$12.50 each (1945 us dollar value, about $ in dollars), "reynolds rocket" became the first commercially successful ballpoint pen. reynolds went to great extremes to market the pen, with great success; gimbel's sold many thousands of pens within one week. in britain, the miles martin pen company was producing the first commercially successful ballpoint pens there by the end of 1945.
ballpoint pen
in 1943, miles was shown a prototype ballpoint pen made by lászló bíró and offered to produce them for the royal air force. the ministry were concerned that it would distract from aircraft production but miles eventually persuaded government officials to let him use 17 unskilled women to produce the "biro" pen, which was the world's first commercially successful ballpoint pen. at the end of the war, the reading biro factory which would employ 700 people, became the miles martin pen company and the biro was sold to the general public.
frederick george miles