EUROPEAN INVENTOR’S AWARD 2022 – A SWISS INVENTOR WINS AGAIN

On June 21, 2022, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced the winners of this year’s prestigious “European Inventor’s Award”. This prize, which recognizes the creativity of inventors, has been awarded annually since 2006 in different categories: industry, research, non-EPO members, small and medium-sized enterprises and life-time achievement.

In the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) category, Swiss researcher Madiha Derouazi is the winner, along with French researcher Elodie Belnoue and their team, for the invention “Therapeutic vaccine platform to treat cancer”.

The 2022 winners for the other categories are as follows (Source EPO):

·       Industry: Jaan Leis, Mati Arulepp and Anti Perkson (Estonia) – “Superior carbon-based materials for ultracapacitors”;

·       Research: Claude Grison (France) – “Decontamination of polluted soils with metal-eating plants “;

·       Non EPO members: Donald Sadoway (Canada/USA) – “Liquid metal batteries for storing renewable energy”;

·       Lifetime Achievement: Katalin Karikó (Hungary/USA) – “Modified mRNA for lifesaving vaccines and therapies”.

The winner of the People’s Choice Award, selected from among the finalists based on votes from Internet users, is this year Elena García Armada (Spain) for the “World’s first adaptable robotic exoskeleton for children”.

It is recalled that Switzerland had already been awarded in 2021 in the research category thanks to the work of inventor Wendelin Stark (Switzerland) in tandem with Robert N. Grass (Austria) for a novel method of storing data on DNA.

For more information:

https://www.epo.org/news-events/news/2022/20220621.html

 

Finally, for the future 2023 edition of the European Inventor Award and the Young Inventors Award, applications can be submitted until October 3, 2022 on the EPO website :

https://www.epo.org/news-events/events/european-inventor/nominate.html