Marcel Louis Michel Antoine Bich, baron Bich (; 29 July 1914 – 30 May 1994) was an Italian-born French manufacturer and co-founder of Bic, the world's leading producer of ballpoint pens, lighters, and razors. Early years Bich was born in Turin, Italy on 29 July 1914 to Aimé-Mario Bich (1882–1955) and Marie Muffat de Saint-Amour de Chanaz (1886–1967). His family moved to Spain and then to France where Bich was naturalised as a French citizen in 1932 and later studied law at the University of Paris. He served in the French Air Force at the outset of World War II. The Bich family originated at Châtillon, and earlier in the Valtournenche valley, in the Aosta Valley. King Charles Albert of Sardinia granted Emmanuel Bich, mayor of Aosta, the title of baron in 1841. Emmanuel's grandson Aimé-Mario Bich, the father of Marcel Bich, was an engineer who moved to France after failing to gain commercial success in Italy. Business success In 1944, Marcel Bich and his partner, Édouard Buffard, bought an empty factory in the Paris suburb of Clichy, where they began the production of inexpensive pen holders and pencil cases. Bich was originally a skeptic of ballpoint pens, which at the time were unreliable and leaked. In 1946, however, by observing the channel made by the wheel of his wheelbarrow in the ground, he understood the USP of the ballpoint pen. Just as the wheel made transporting items easier, the ball could allow the hand to be free from the constraints of the pen nib and make writing more fluid. Marcel Bich bought the patent for the ballpoint pen for US$2 million from Hungarian László Bíró who had been producing such pens since 1943 in Argentina. Using Swiss watchmaking tools, he devised a manufacturing process that produced stainless-steel balls for the tip of the pen, and the Bic Cristal ballpoint pen became his first product in 1950. The Bic Cristal ballpoint pen went on to become a worldwide best-seller, and the design remains mostly unchanged today. Bich formed Société Bic in 1953. Bich partnered with poster designer Raymond Savignac to create the company's advertisements, who created the Bic Boy that later became part of the company's official logo. Bic won the first French Oscar for advertising, sponsored the Tour de France, and became an essential item and a household name. Between 1950 and the 1970s, Bic expanded globally, into Italy,