Patent grants and innovation reach a new high at Endress+Hauser Group

Endress+Hauser Group CEO Matthias Altendorf presents a multi-sensor system for monitoring fermentation processes at the company’s 2021 Innovators’ Meeting.

The Endress+Hauser Group reached a new one-year record in 2020 with 738 patent grants, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. This was an increase of 61 over the company’s 2019 showing. With more than 8,900 patents and patent applications protecting the intellectual property of Endress+Hauser products, the company now has a larger portfolio of intellectual property than ever before. Last year, the corporation filed a total of 276 new patent applications.

Digital tools bridging the distance

What makes this achievement more impressive was that it occurred during a global lockdown, despite particular strain and extra tasks. Staff designed and tested new products at home and in workshops, with and without masks, using both collaboration and digital tools. Innovation has continued to drive company growth, as these digital tools helped bridge physical distance between employees and each other and/or customers. Endress+Hauser knows that direct contact and face-to-face encounters are necessary for long-term relationships, though. With physical proximity, the company expects to build more cooperation, collaboration, and creativity.

More than 500 of the company’s internal inventors recently gathered in a virtual Innovators’ Meeting, the first one in two years due to the 2020 cancellation. This year, Endress+Hauser invited two innovator cohorts to honour the company’s spirits of creativity and invention. One purpose of the Innovators’ Meeting is to offer Endress+Hauser inventors a platform for exchanging ideas. Prizes are awarded to economically significant patents and successful inventors; roughly 50 staff members won prizes this year, through the company Patent Rights Incentive Program, which has promoted the protection of intellectual property for two decades.

Customer benefit is always the key priority of Endress+Hauser innovation – partly through new products and technologies, but also through smoother cooperation or accelerated development projects and patent grants. This is why the Innovators’ Meeting also presents awards for process improvement and reusing previously developed solutions every year. In 2021, dozens of these awards were bestowed on Endress+Hauser employees.

With the help of patent grants and constant innovation, Endress+Hauser will continue to excel in its field for years to come, after the world gets back to normal.

To learn more, contact Endress+Hauser.

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