Ball-point pen

Over at Nanopolitan my friend Abi had this intersesting post on the space-pen giving links a story in Scientific American. I found a more down-to-earth (so to speak) story on the ball-point pen that appeared recently on BBC quite fascinating. Which always brings to me to the question as to why in the history of our country (atleast the recent history) we have been so short on innovations, small or great?