EU Honours Key Inventions

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

05 May 2006

Medical breakthroughs in fighting Hepatitis B, novel anti-viral properties, the DNA chip and methods for intercepting illness-causing proteins were among the final winners of the European Inventor of the Year awards, held on Wednesday.

The winners have all contributed to society via their innovations and progressive contributions, and were selected by an international jury, chaired by former Netherlands Prime Minister Wim Kok, on the basis of outstanding technical inventions for which the European Patent Office (EPO) granted a patent between 1991 and 2000.

The inventors honoured at the ceremony were: Zbigniew Janowicz and Professor Cornelius Hollenberg (Rhein Biotech GmbH, DE) in the industry category, Dr Stephen P.A. Fodor and his team of scientists, Michael C. Pirrung, Leighton J. Read and Lubert Styler (Affymax, NL) in the small and medium-sized enterprises category, Professor Peter Grünberg (Kernforschunglanlage Jülich, DE) in the Universities and Research category, and John Edwards Starrett (Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biotechemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, CZ) and his team in the category for New EU Member States.

Winners of the Non-European countries award were two American scientists, Larry Gold and Craig Tuerk (NeXstar Pharmaceuticals Inc., US).

Federico Faggin was additionally honoured with the Lifetime Achievement award for the invention of the microchip.

Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen observed that:

"The ‘European Inventor of the Year awards’ highlight that Europe continues to be leading in providing breakthrough inventions. These are striking examples how technical innovation, patent protection and marketing strategies can successfully interact for the benefit of the economy ."

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