ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,330,444, issued on June 17, was assigned to SOCIETE BIC (Clichy, France).
"Ceramic writing ball" was invented by Julien Bouchet (Clichy, France) and Ghislain Alves (Clichy, France).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system may include a writing instrument. The writing instrument may include a ceramic writing ball. The ceramic writing ball may include, relative to the total weight of the ceramic writing ball, about 1.0 wt.-% to about 14.6 wt.-% of one or more metal oxides selected from Y2O3, HfO, MgO, CaO and/or Ce2O3, and about 0.15 wt.-% to about 3.0 wt.-% Al2O3, and ZrO2 as balance."
The patent was filed on June 27, 2022, under Applicati...