Patent applicationsSiemens is European Patent Champion
With 174,317 applications, the European Patent Office reported a new record last year. The most active European company was Siemens. The last time the company led the field in Europe was in 2011.
If passengers on the Rhine-Ruhr Express soon have better mobile phone reception, they will have a trio of inventors from Vienna to thank. Mobile phone connections are often interrupted because the carriage body is a Faraday cage that simply bounces off the radio beams. Dr. Mehrdad Madjdi (56, right), Dr. Lukas W. Mayer (38, center) and Andreas Demmer (32, left) have developed a special structure for the window coating that reduces the shielding effect and significantly improves reception. The invention is the result of a successful collaboration between the Mobility and Corporate Technology divisions in Austria. The trio of inventors received an award in the 'Outstanding Invention' category.