European Inventor Awards - The 2021 Finalists

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Each year, since 2006 (except 2020), the European Patent Office has recognized inventors in five categories, within the context of the European Inventor Awards. The five categories of award are Research, Industry, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Non-European Patent Organization country, and Lifetime Achievement. The EPO just announced the list of the fifteen 2021 Finalists (included below), three in each of the five previously mentioned categories. 

In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 Award ceremony promises to be special. Indeed, the ceremony will take place on June 17^th 2021, at 19:00 hours, Central European Summer Time (CEST), in an extended reality mode, including 3D animation, with no pre-registration. In other words, for the first time since the inception of the Awards, the awards ceremony will be open to the public on a global basis, free of charge.  

Considering the new distributed augmented reality format of the 2021 Awards ceremony, the 2021 trophy also promises to be interesting. In the shape of a sail, fabrication of the Inventor Award trophy is always commissioned from local manufacturers, as a showcase of renowned craftsmanship, in the country where the Awards ceremony takes place. For example, the trophy was made of Murano glass, when the 2017 Awards ceremony took place in Venice, Italy.  Likewise, the trophy was made of azulejo ceramics when the 2016 Awards ceremony took place in Lisbon, Portugal. In 2021, however, the trophy commission is much harder to predict.

An EPO YouTube video presenting the list of Finalists is included below, together with a list of the inventors and hyperlinked patents of the contending inventions.

Research

• Marco Donolato and team (IT/DK)

    Invention: Magnetic nanoparticles to diagnose disease.

    Sample patent: EP3014245

• Robert N. Grass (AT) and Wendelin Stark (CH)

    Invention : DNA-based data storage.

    Sample patent: EP2831268

• Mathias Fink and Mickael Tanter (FR)

    Invention: Ultrasound imaging method using shear waves.

    Sample patents: EP2561380, EP2342582, EP1866667, EP1546757 and EP1531734

Industry

• Per Gisle Djupesland (NO) 

    Invention : Better nasal drug delivery.

    Sample patent: EP2340865

• Christoph Gürtler, Walter Leitner and team (DE)

    Invention : Using carbon dioxide to make greener plastics.

    Sample patents:  EP3041883, EP3008100

• Jan van der Tempel (NL)

    Invention: Safe transfer to and from offshore platforms.

    Sample patents :  EP1993902, EP2603422

 Small and Medium Enterprises (SME)

• Carmen Hijosa (ES)

    Invention: Turning pineapple leaves into a sustainable alternative to leather.

    Sample patent: EP2576881 

• Ben Kibel and Pete Kibel (UK)

    Invention: Fishing hook cover to save seabirds.

    Sample patent: EP2731423 

• Henrik Lindström and Giovanni Fili (SE)

    Invention: Flexible solar cells for portable devices.

    Sample patent: EP2625703

 Non-European Patent Organization country

• Bo Pi and Yi He (CN)

    Invention: Live fingerprint sensors for greater security.

    Sample patent : EP3072083 

• Kim Lewis and Slava S. Epstein (US/RU)

    Invention: Tools to cultivate microbes.

    Sample patents:  EP1456401, EP1999248

• Sumita Mitra (IN/US)

    Invention: Restoring smiles with nanomaterials.

    Sample patents : EP1225867, EP1227782, EP1229886, EP1771143

Lifetime Achievement

• Metin Colpan (DE)

    Efficient tools to analyze nucleic acids.

    Sample patents: EP0268946, EP0104210 

• Karl Leo (DE)

    Advances in organic semiconductors.

    Sample patents: EP1488468, EP1861886, EP2658006 

• Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic (RS/US)

    Advances in tissue engineering.

    Sample patents : EP2408401, EP1112348

References

European Patent Office ( EPO) www.epo.org

EPO – European Inventor Awards https://www.epo.org/news-events/events/european-inventor.html

EPO - European Inventor Awards 2021 Finalists Announced  https://www.epo.org/news-events/press/european-inventor-award/2021.html