When Hungarian journalist, Laszlo Biro, visited a newspaper he noticed that the ink they used left the paper dry and smudge-free almost immediately. Biro was aware of the problems with normal pens in those, and decided to use this quick drying ink in a new type of writing instrument.

Biro used a tiny metal ball that rotated at the end of a tube filled with this ink. This tiny ball would act as a cap to keep the ink from drying as well as let ink flow out of the pen at a controlled rate.