EPO unveils European Inventor Award 2019 nominees
The European Patent Office (EPO) has announced the finalists for the 14th annual European Inventor Award, which will be awarded in five categories at a ceremony in Vienna on June 20.
Awards will be given to the owners of inventions in the categories of "industry", "research", "non-EPO countries", "SMEs" and "lifetime achievement".
The winners will be determined by an independent, international jury, while members of the public can choose the winner of the ‘Popular Prize’ out of the 15 overall finalists via an online vote.
Industry
Klaus Feichtinger and Manfred Hackl from EREMA group in Austria are nominated in the industry category for their Counter Current technology. The invention enables “higher-performance plastic recycling” at a faster rate and lower temperature than previous methods.
Antonio Corredor Molguero and Carlos Fermín Menéndez Díaz, of Spanish company SATO, are also nominated for the prize for their concrete mould for better breakwaters. Their mould is designed to produce concrete blocks to protect coastal areas from flooding.
Rounding off the industry category are Alexander van der Lely and Karel van den Berg from the Lely Group in the Netherlands. Their automated milking robot “allows cows to decide when it’s time to be milked”, the EPO said.
Research
The “research” category is dominated by inventions from the life sciences. Jérôme Galon, of HalioDx in France, is nominated for Immunoscore, a clearer and more accurate cancer test.
Matthew Mann, a professor at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany, is nominated for his method of analysing proteins in order to detect and more accurately diagnose disease.
Patrizia Paterlini-Bréchot, the only female nominee outside of the “lifetime achievement” category, is also up for the research award after inventing a blood-filtration system which detects tumour cells.
Non-EPO countries
Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, the owners of US company Ecovative Design, have been nominated in the non-EPO countries category. They have invented biodegradable packaging from mushrooms that can be moulded into almost any shape.
Israeli engineer Gideon Stein, of Mobileye Technologies, is nominated for an artificial intelligence-assisted vision system for cars designed to improve road safety.
Meanwhile, Akira Yoshino has been recognised with a nomination for his invention of the lithium-ion battery in 1983. These batteries, and variants of them, are commonly used to power laptops and mobile phones.
Small and medium-sized enterprises
Norwegian inventor Esben Beck, of Stingray Marine Solutions, has pioneered a method of killing sea lice without releasing harmful chemicals into the water. These lice are known to be a scourge of Norway’s salmon population, reducing harvests by 9%, according to the EPO. Beck’s Stingray device uses image recognition software to detect the lice. The Stingray then emits a laser beam which is lethal to the lice but reflects harmlessly off the salmon’s scales.
Marine technology features strongly in this category, with Rik Breur of the Material Innovation Centre in the Netherlands also nominated for his eco-friendly solution to marine biofouling. Breur invented a nylon-based wrap which prevents the growth of algae, barnacles and mussels on boat hulls. The wrap has a less-harmful impact on marine life than the toxic paint commonly employed by shipbuilders.
Richard Palmer and Phillip Green of UK company D30 are nominated for their invention of a flexible armour material that stiffens on impact. The liquid-based material is applied in protective sports equipment for activities such as snowboarding.
Lifetime Achievement
Austrian physicist Maximilian Haider is up for the lifetime achievement category, after a career dedicated to improving the image resolution of electron microscopes. According to the EPO, his electromagnetic corrective lens is used in over 90% of transmission electron microscopes worldwide.
Marta Karczewicz, a Polish software engineer for Qualcomm, has earned a nomination for her work on advanced video compression (AVC). She is named as the inventor of almost 130 European patents based on AVC technology, one of the most widely-used video compression technologies in the world.
Portuguese geneticist Margarita Salas Falgueras is nominated for her pioneering work in developing a method of building traces of DNA into quantities large enough for genomic testing. She isolated the phi29 DNA polymerase enzyme, which is now used in oncology, forensics and archaeology.
EPO President António Campinos said that the nominees were “tackling some of society's most pressing challenges head-on”.
“From fighting cancer to reducing plastic waste, the contribution of our finalists is spearheading a drive towards a better future,” Campinos added.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
Today's top stories:
SCOTUS rules on post-bankruptcy trademark licensing
Unified Patents reveals new cybersecurity protection network
