Inventors awarded at Goodyear ceremony

Goodyear recently honoured 140 Goodyear engineers and associates at a ceremony in Luxembourg. The 39th patent award celebration in Mondorf-les-Bains was attended by numerous regional Goodyear leaders and opened by Bernd Kutsch, who is in charge of the Goodyear Innovation Centre Luxembourg patent department. Marc Hansen, Luxembourg’s Minister Delegate for Higher Education and Research, was guest of honour at the event.

This year’s ceremony acknowledged the achievements of associates based at Goodyear’s Luxembourg and Hanau (Germany) research and development facilities, as well as those from several European Goodyear Dunlop plants. In his welcome speech, Kutsch congratulated the inventors for their efforts in 2016: “In total, 48 utility patents, 25 design patents and 20 trade secrets have been granted in 2016. In addition, 160 invention disclosures were generated in 2016, representing close to 50 per cent of the global invention disclosures for the same period.”

The awardees were each presented with a ‘Patent and Trade Secret Award’ by Jean-Claude Kihn, president of Goodyear Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Carlos Cipollitti, vice-president EMEA for product development. Cipollitti also congratulated the inventors: “I believe that we can really be proud about these figures. Your remarkable efforts in creating sustainable technologies and safe tyres will considerably support our company to reach its objectives of customer satisfaction and growth.”

New technologies in the 4×4 tyre segment for Asia, a new tyre sealant and application technology for passenger car tyres, as well as numerous new tyres that have been developed for the original equipment passenger tyre market, were highlighted during the evening. Three teams were recognised as the ‘Inventors of the Year 2016’. Six inventors were also recognised with the ‘Silver Coin Award’ for multiple patent or trade secrets.

Goodyear considers its Innovation Center in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg its most important research and development facility in Europe and the second most important worldwide. With its 3,290 associates, Goodyear Luxembourg is the country’s second largest industrial employer.