--- ---  # Google's New Doodle Celebrates Ladislao José Bíro, Inventor of the Ballpoint Pen by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Sep 29, 2016 7:19 AM UTC  Google by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Sep 29, 2016 7:19 AM UTC Ladislao José Bíro was [born 117 years ago](https://www.google.com/doodles/ladislao-jose-biros-117th-birthday) today, and while you may not have heard of him before, you’re surely familiar with his most lasting invention: the ballpoint pen. Google’s latest Doodle honors the Hungarian tinkerer, with a nifty animation illustrating how the pen works. Bíro was born into a Jewish family in Budapest in 1899\. While working as a journalist, he noticed that newspaper ink dried more quickly than the handwritten words pouring out of his fountain pen. Determined to take clean, smudge-free notes, he teamed up with his brother, a chemist, to create the perfect writing apparatus. Together they created a new tip with a tiny ball-bearing, which picked up traces of their unique quick-drying ink as it rolled across a notepad. The Bíro pen was patented in 1938\. The rest is history. The ballpoint pen is still often called a “biro” in [several countries](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/28/who-was-ladislao-jose-biro-how-did-he-invent-the-ballpoint-pen-a/), including the U.K., Ireland, Australia and Italy. In Argentina, where the brothers moved in the 1940s after fleeing the Nazi occupation of Hungary, it is known as a “birome”. Even today, the ballpoint pen still holds the honor of world’s most-used writing instrument. Google Doodle Celebrates the Inventor of the Ballpoint Pen ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4512701/google-doodle-ladislao-biro-ballpoint-pen/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4512701/google-doodle-ladislao-biro-ballpoint-pen/"},"headline":"Google's New Doodle Celebrates Ladislao José Bíro, Inventor of the Ballpoint Pen","datePublished":"2016-09-29T07:19:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:37:09.429Z","description":"Eight decades later, it's still the world's most-used writing instrument","url":"https://time.com/4512701/google-doodle-ladislao-biro-ballpoint-pen/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Google Doodle"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt63e9845364e69e23/6988a8050b72e39d8d6eb2ae/ladislao-jose-biros-117th-birthday-5067428201496576-hp2x.gif?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt63e9845364e69e23/6988a8050b72e39d8d6eb2ae/ladislao-jose-biros-117th-birthday-5067428201496576-hp2x.gif?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"ladislao-jose-biros-117th-birthday-5067428201496576-hp2x","caption":"","creditText":"Google","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4512701/google-doodle-ladislao-biro-ballpoint-pen/","name":"Google's New Doodle Celebrates Ladislao José Bíro, Inventor of the Ballpoint Pen"}}]}] ```