European Inventor Awards 2010: winners announced

The winners of European Inventor Award 2010 were announced today at a ceremony in Madrid attended by Their Royal Highnesses Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia of Asturias.

This year, for the first time ever, five winners were announced, after the jury selected two teams in the "Non-European countries" category.

Extending his "deepest congratulations" to the winners and their teams, His Royal Highness Prince Felipe said the awards were a "true homage to talent and genius, the very raw material for invention".

The winners of the European Inventor Award 2010 are:

Wolfgang Krätschmer (Germany), who discovered a whole new field of research in physics, for which he was honoured in the Lifetime achievement category.
Jürgen Pfitzer and Helmut Nägele (Germany), in the SMEs/research category, who made a breakthrough by developing an easily formable, biodegradable organic polymer.
Albert Markendorf (Switzerland) and Raimund Loser (Germany), in the Industry category, whose portable 3D scanning and measuring system opened up a new level of accuracy in industrial measuring systems and revolutionised the field.
Sanjai Kohli and Steven Chen (USA), in the Non-European countries category, whose work paved the way for GPS systems that are used commercially and are a part of our everyday lives.
Ben Wiens and Danny Epps, two Canadians who developed electrochemical fuel cells which are now a commercially successful alternative to fossil fuels, for which they too were honoured in the Non-European countries category.
Speaking at the ceremony, Amparo Fernández, Undersecretary for Industry, Tourism and Trade of the Government of Spain, said that the inventors honoured had "improved everybody's well-being". She highlighted the connection between innovation and economic growth, saying that innovative ideas lead to "products and services that create jobs".

"The success of these inventions is an incentive to intensify our future efforts to maintain the quality of European patents as an effective instrument in the protection of innovation", said EPO President Alison Brimelow.

Around 300 people attended the ceremony at the Eurostars Madrid Tower. 

Source: WIPO web site