March 15, 2016 - Endress+Hauser invests more than seven percent of its sales worldwide in research and development. A consistently high rate of patent applications in all areas of measurement technology is proof of the solid power of innovation of the Swiss family company.
Honoring its inventors has a long tradition at the measurement and automation technology specialist: Employees who have filed a patent are invited to the annual Innovators’ Meeting. “This is how we show our inventors that we appreciate their work,” says Michael Ziesemer. Attended by over 300 people, the 2016 event took place on 11 March at the exhibition center in Mulhouse, France. As every year, patents that are particularly important in economic terms received prizes during this festive occasion.
“With 270 first applications and 456 patents granted, we’re pleased to report that we once more exceeded last year’s good results,” says Angelika Andres, Head of PatServe, Endress+Hauser’s intellectual property department. “The development shows a high level of continuity and a good spread across all our key technologies.” The segment with the strongest growth was analytics, where the strategic acquisitions of recent years (Analytik Jena, SpectraSensors, Kaiser Optical Systems) make themselves felt. The number of proprietary rights active worldwide has meanwhile risen to 6,552.
On average, four out of five invention disclosures from Endress+Hauser’s rank and file are forwarded to the patent office. More than half of these have global relevance and are also patented in the USA and in China. Only about 30 percent of all patents reach business relevance, often after many years, but they are crucially important for the Group’s growth. “Our proprietary rights not only protect individual innovations, but the enterprise as a whole,” explains Michael Ziesemer, COO of the Endress+Hauser Group.
“Our own broad-based patent portfolio allows us to fend off attacks by competitors with much better chances of success.”
