2022 Patentamt Annual Report

"The good and the bad advisor"

The good and the bad advisor, two sides, represented by a bistable image. Faces speaking from the left and from the right, whispering or calling out to you. The space in between resembles a river that sometimes sways wider, sometimes narrower, sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the other, and also stands in for the viewer himself.
The balance that the two sides maintain is constantly different.

The print on the whole sheet of paper is divided by tearing into fourteen different editions, in which the weighting is always a little different. The editions, which are printed and also distributed, are screen-printed and torn by hand, numbered 185 each, signed and marked with a Roman numeral to indicate their place in the whole sheet.

Julian Kadrnoschka studies at the class for graphic arts and printmaking at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

Goodbye to problematic ingredients in cosmetics!

With its colloidal lignin particles obtained from lignified biomass, Lignovations offers a healthier alternative for the environment and humans. With the help of their patented process, the start-up from Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria produces multifunctional particles suitable for industrial use in a variety of end products such as sun creams, varnishes, paints, wood protection, packaging and functional textiles.

Angela Miltner, COO of Lignovations: "Until now, lignin was mainly burnt. With our process, it should replace synthetic ingredients in cosmetics. The discover.ip service, which the Austrian Patent Office offers in cooperation with the Austria Wirtschaftservice (aws) free of charge to technology-oriented SMEs like Lignovations has helped us to also secure our ideas with two more word marks and another patent.”

Technologies of the future

The government's funding strategy is bearing fruit: Austria continues to grow strongly in future technologies. We are in 8th place in the EU in this area. Particularly in the fields of artificial intelligence, 3D printing, robotics and drones, a lot of patents are being filed in this country.

We owe this impressive increase in performance to our industrial flagship programmes Production of the Future, ICT of the Future, but also to the research work in the relevant COMET centres such as the Austrian Center for Digital Production, the Linz Center of Mechatronics or Pro2Future - Products and Production Systems of the Future".

Industry 4.0

In the practical implementation of the 4th industrial revolution, patent applications have more than tripled since 2010. In some areas, such as energy-saving technologies, data management and robotics, patent applications from Austria have increased six-fold since 2010.

What steam was for the 1st industrial revolution, data is for Industry 4.0. Everything revolves around data: 3D systems, IT hardware and software, connectivity (networking), AI, digital technologies in every area of life... smart homes, industrial robots, drones, data security systems, etc.

A power plant powered by negative emission technology!

What sounds like a utopian fantasy is something SynCraft proudly pins to its banners. The Tyrolean start-up has patented a technology that thermochemically transforms wood waste from forestry and sawmills into gas. In this way, in addition to electricity and heat, charcoal is also produced, which can be used as soil fertilizer or barbecue charcoal. This not only pleases consumers who are striving for more independence from energy imports, but also the climate, because CO2 is permanently bound in the charcoal. SynCraft power plants can be found in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, Italy and even in Japan. The Tyrolean start-up also wants to get to grips with concrete, which is harmful to the climate. As initial test series have already shown, the material SynCraft calls climate concrete is in no way inferior to its conventional counterpart in terms of compressive strength and surface properties.

Marcel Huber, founder of SynCraft: "We took advantage of the patent voucher several times and patented the fixed-bed reactors we developed as well as a number of technical refinements around our reverse power plant. Thus, we felt confident to enter the markets of our choice."