EPO launches a Competition for Young Inventors

European Patent Office in Munich

Author Karlis Dambrāns Licence CC BY 2.0 Source Wikimedia Commons

 

Jane Lambert

Following the success of its European Inventor Award, the European Patent Office has announced a competition for a Young Inventors Prize,  Starting from 2022 the EPO will award cash prizes of €20,000, €10,000 and €5,000 for the top 3 inventions by inventors or teams of inventors aged 30 or less,  Entries are invited from every country or territory in the world.  They may consist of an idea, project or product in any area of technology so long as it is properly documented which addresses a problem within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Entries must be submitted on the EPO's application form before 1 Oct 2021.  They will be screened by a multi-disciplinary panel of experts who will send the most promising entries to an international jury chaired by Dr Helen Lee,  According to the EPO website:

"The jury will consider the following hierarchy when evaluating the supportive documentation submitted with the nominated initiatives (listed in order of descending importance) ...."

The prizes will be presented at a special award ceremony in June 2022.

The winners of this year's European Inventors Award were Per Gisle Djupesland of Norway for a better nasal drug delivery device, Robert N Grass of Austria and Wendelin Stark of Switzerland for DNA-based data storage, Sunita Mitra of India and the USA for restoring smiles with nanomaterials, Henrik Lindström and Giovanni Fili of Sweden for flexible solar cells for portable devices, Karl Leo of Germany for advances in organic semiconductors and Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic of Serbia and the USA for advances in tissue engineering.  I congratulate each and every one of those inventors and wish them continued success in the future.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or inventions and patents generally may call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during British office hours or send me a message through my contact form at other times.