The German Design Council, initiated by the German Bundestag and sponsored by German industry, announced this year’s international German Innovation Awards on May 26th. Four times among the winners: Innovations that are explained in the case studies on outstanding IP management at the MIPLM. These business models were designed and protected with IP design: Heraeus Amloy, Luqel, Umdasch Group Venture Contact and Hansgrohe RainTunes.

All award-winning case study projects are examples of how extensive the digital transformation is regardless of the industry and how traditional business models lead to substantial changes.

Take the example of Luqel: The Luqel Waterstation cleans tap water in a specially developed three-stage filtration process. It is equipped with numerous patent-pending technologies that make it possible to remove any pollutants and contaminants. A newly developed liquid dosage then mineralizes the purified water on the basis of individual recipes, so that it can be served chilled, tempered, still or finely bubbled – according to personal preference. The LUQEL Ecosystem, which is also protected, makes drinking water an all-round experience: the purest enjoyment of water at any time and in any place, digitally supported and tailored to your individual lifestyle. Hence the Luqel slogan: “Water as individual as you are”.

 

Heraeus Amloy offers with its amorphous alloys a new class of materials with combinations of properties that have not been realized before. The amorphous alloys that Heraeus Amloy manufactures and processes have high hardness and strength combined with great elasticity, which is excluded in crystalline materials. Because of the non-crystalline structure in the material, amorphous metals are often called metallic glasses. Due to the lack of grain and phase boundaries, the material is extremely resistant to corrosion and also biocompatible. Heraeus Amloy has successfully processed its materials by injection molding and 3D printing into near-net-shape components on an industrial scale and thus generated a completely new market.

 

Umdasch Group Venture: For affordable and livable living space to be available to 11.2 billion people in 2100, we must begin today to significantly increase productivity in the construction industry. Digitization offers the opportunity to industrialize the processes in construction sustainably. Contakt is the combination of construction management method knowledge, software, artificial intelligence, and sensors. Contakt makes concrete construction sites intelligent: In real time, the construction is mirrored against the virtual building model, which allows the teams a disruptively new type of construction project planning, monitoring and improvement. This in turn makes performance and improvements so transparent that optimizations are immediately possible, and the data can also be used for future projects.

 

RainTunes by Hansgrohe offers a multi-sensory and inspiring shower experience. In collaboration with experts from different areas of life, hansgrohe has developed several special RainTunes scenarios. Specifically, this involves synchronizing the temperature and intensity of the water as well as controlling light, fragrance, music, and other multimedia applications. In combination with the hansgrohe home app, innovative digital options are implemented in the bathroom.

 

We congratulate all award winners and wish them continued success with innovation – thank you for the cooperation so far and we look forward to the further common challenges.