he other man to bring the ballpoint pen successfully back to life was Marcel Bich, a French manufacturer of penholders and pen cases. Bich was appalled at the poor quality of the ballpoint pens he had seen and he was also shocked at their high cost. But he recognized that the ballpoint was a firmly established innovation and he resolved to design a high-quality pen at a low price that would scoop the market. He went to the Biro brothers and arranged to pay them a royalty on their patent. Then for two years Marcel Bich studied the detailed construction of every ballpoint pen on the market, often working with a microscope. By 1952 Bich was ready to introduce his new wonder: a clear-barreled, smooth-writing, non-leaky, inexpensive ballpoint pen he called the "Ballpoint Bic." The ballpoint pen had finally become a practical writing instrument. The public accepted it without complaint, and today it is as standard a writing implement as the pencil. In England, they are still called Biros, and many Bic models also say "Biro" on the side of the pen, as a testament to their primary inventors.