Simply adding fountain pen ink to a ballpoint pen was not the solution, however.

The ink itself needed to

be rethought.

László turned to his brother, Győrgy, a dentist who was also a talented chemist. László had realised the
ink used in fountain pains was too slow to dry and needed something more like the ink used on
newspapers. Győrgy came up with a viscous ink which spread easily but dried quickly. What’s more, the
pen used far less ink than the spotting, dripping fountain pens.

“Other people had thought of it before, but it was down to him, working with his brother – who was a
good chemist – and getting the texture of the ink right,” says Curtin. “It is very like printer’s ink, and it
doesn’t smudge.”

The principle at the heart of the ballpoint pen mimics the action of a roll-on deodorant – gravity and the
force applied smear the rolling ball with a continuous stream of ink as the ball rolls along the writing
surface When the pen isn’t used, the ball sits tight against the end of the ink reservoir, preventing air
entering and drying out the ink. Most often, ballpoint pens run out of ink long before they dry out.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201028-history-of-the-ballpoint-pen