How does that work?
Intel researcher Ajay Bhatt has been recognised by the European Patent Office for his development of the USB interface. It was an excellent invention, cutting through a raft of non compatible interface protocols, and created just when the market needed such a feature.
USB has, of course, moved on significantly from its early days, transferring data at 1.5Mbit/s. Now, it's available in a wireless format and the data transfer rate of the latest specification – USB 3.0 – is huge, with a peak rate of 5Gbit/s. Because of this, USB drives are everywhere.
Here's the strange thing: although based in the US, Bhatt and his co workers have won the European Inventor Award. How can this be? The answer is they won the 'non European' category.
You might wonder why a European competition accepts entries from non Europeans. The answer is because Intel et al filed a European patent for USB.
Why call it the European Inventor Award when entries are accepted from anywhere?