Parker were late comers into the rapidly growing ballpoint pen business, the Parker Jotter was launched in 1954, 13 years after Lazlo Biro's first offering, the 'Birome'.
When criticised for their apparent lack of interest by Time Magazine, Kenneth Parker replied with a rebuttal. In essence, he said that the current ballpoint pens were rubbish and Parker would only offer a pen to the public when they were sure it was a great product. Designing and testing such a product took time and Parker simply were not ready until they unveiled the Jotter, it was revolutionary and orders of magnitude better than any other ballpoint to date.
According to Walter Bieger, after release of the Jotter, Parker's chief designer, Dan Parker sent for him and said:
'Wally, what I'd really like to see is a short pen for women, where the outside of the pen is no longer than the cartridge it contains.'
This was a huge challenge, it meant shortening the jotter by about 2 1/2 cm. and still retain the ability to extend and retract the point. The solution Bieger found was ingenious. Rather than a second press of the button to retract the point the new button was pushed from the side to release the cartridge. The result was that, with the point extended, the pen is less than 1 mm. longer than the cartridge.
The new pen, released in 1957, was originally called the Shorty Jotter but, within a Year, Parker decided to make it more appealing to women by giving the pen a Gold filled cap and changing the name to 'Parker Minim'