Europe's most innovative inventors up for European Inventor Award: nominations announced
Recognising the great minds behind the new inventions that drive the Innovation Union is the aim of the European Patent Office's (EPO's) annual European Inventor Award (EIA) competition, and the nominations for the accolade have just been announced. The aim of the award is to acknowledge the contribution inventors make to technological, social and economic progress. An international jury, made up of leading personalities from industry, science, politics and the media, whittled down nearly 200 inventors and entrepreneurs to 15 finalists who are up for awards in 5 categories: Industry, Research, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), Non-European countries, and Lifetime achievement. EPO President Benoît Battistelli comments: 'Patents play a key role in stimulating innovation, in securing jobs and advancing society. Behind every invention, there are men and women, driven by the passion of discovery, to whom the European Patent Office would like to pay tribute. They are the true heroes of the 21st century economy.' The finalists hail from seven European and two non-European countries. They are experts in various fields: medical technology and medicine, telecommunications, wastewater treatment, battery recycling, energy storage and environment, clothing, laser technology, railway manufacturing and construction. In the Lifetime achievement category, there are three nominees: Austrian engineer and entrepreneur Dr Josef Theurer, who established the company Plasser & Theurer, the world market leader for railway track-laying machines; laser eye correction specialist Professor Josef Bille from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, whose laser eye surgery (LASIK) invention can correct near-sightedness, far-sightedness, and astigmatism; and founder of Italian company GEOX Mario Polegato, who invented an improved vapour-permeable shoe as a solution to foot odour. In the Research category, the nominees are made up of three teams. First up is Professor Jason Chin from the United Kingdom and Professor Oliver Rackham from Australia; they created a way to incorporate unnatural amino acids into proteins, enabling molecular biologists to control and elucidate the functions of proteins in cells with unprecedented precision. Their invention has the potential to revolutionise the way patients are treated in protein-like therapeutics such as insulin treatment, as well as to detect prostate, ovarian, and colon cancer. The second team up for the accolade comprises French researchers Dr Gilles Gosselin, Professor Jean-Louis Imbach and Dr Martin L. Bryant; they developed a hepatitis B drug that is more effective than any other of its kind. The third group in the category, Professor Mark van Loosdrecht, Dr Merle Krista de Kreuk and Dr Joseph Heijnen from the Netherlands, invented an advanced wastewater treatment technology that uses aerobic granular biomass and is already in commercial application. The process, named NEREDA, reduces nitrogen and phosphate levels by 95% without relying on extra chemicals. The EIA is organised in cooperation with the European Commission and the country holding the Council (of the European Union) Presidency at the time of the award ceremony, this year Denmark. The winners of the EIA will be revealed on 14 June at an award ceremony in Copenhagen. The EPO was founded with the aim of strengthening cooperation between the European states in the field of invention protection. Through the EPO's centralised patent granting procedure, inventors are able to obtain patent protection in the 38 member states of the European Patent Organisation.For more information, please visit:European Patent Office (EPO):http://www.epo.org/index.html
Countries
Denmark