The first PILOT pens were created in Japan in 1918. At that time the country was opening up to English influence and importing European techniques.

Commercial agreements and contracts were concluded, and soon the Japanese, whose writing was poorly adapted to the imperatives of trade, had to simplify the layout of their ideograms and adopt international calligraphic standards. Numerous pen factories were then created in the land of the rising sun.

Ryosuke NAMIKI, mechanical engineer and professor at the Tokyo Merchant Marine School, was won over by the ingenuity of these fountain pens. His contemporaries called them "10,000-year-old brushes" because of the uninterrupted flow of their ink reservoir. At the same time Ryosuke NAMIKI remained convinced of their imperfections.

With the help of industrial engineering, he created a high-quality prototype. After teaming up with one of his colleagues, Masao WADA, he founded the NAMIKI MANUFACTURING COMPANY and started production of fountain pens.

In homage to the sea, their other shared passion, the two partners named the brand PILOT, referring to the flagship that traces the wake of the fleet.

In 1938 the company became PILOT PEN Co Ltd, and in 1989 it became PILOT CORPORATION, a modern name covering the decades of creativity, innovation and design that have positioned the PILOT brand at the forefront of writing instrument technology worldwide.