Google honors ballpoint pen creator Ladislao Jose Biro with new Doodle

BUDAPEST, Hungary, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Google is celebrating what would have been the 177th birthday of ballpoint pen creator Ladislao Jose Biro with a new Doodle.

Users who visit Google's homepage Thursday will notice artwork depicting the use of a ballpoint pen to write out the word Google while an animated bubble highlights how the ballpoint pen functions.

As the internet giant explains, Biro, whose name now appears on ballpoint pens around the globe, was frustrated with how long the ink from fountain pens took to dry and sought a more efficient way to write.

"He worked with his brother, Gyorgy Biro, a chemist, to develop a new type of pen made up of a ball that turned in a socket. As the ball turned, it picked up ink from a cartridge and rolled to deposit it on paper, much like a newsprint roller transfers an inked image to paper," Google writes of his ballpoint invention.

"Biro presented the first prototype of the ballpoint pen at the Budapest International Fair in 1931, later patenting his invention in 1938. To this day, the ballpoint pen is still referred to as the 'Biro' in several countries."

Notably, that patent was later bought by Marcel Bich, the co-founder of Bic who in honor of Biro has continued to name its pens after him.