Building and Construction

Besides the wheel, is there an invention older than the pulley? The earliest depiction of a pulley made of at least one loose reel and a rope can be seen in an Assyrian relief from about 970 B.C.

The last 3,000 years have seen many new ideas and inventions in construction. Not all of them have been as successful as the first industrially manufactured expansion peg, which was invented in 1910 by John Joseph Rawlings and registered at the Patent Office in London in 1911.

Construction is often viewed by the other technical disciplines as weaker in innovation. However, the existence of thousands of patents in Germany alone prove the opposite. Whether the breakthrough relates to the environmental compatibility of construction materials, the rheology of self-compacting concrete, tunnel illumination with LED technology, ecologic-hydraulic modelling or addresses hot topics such as geothermal component activation and heat recovery from wastewater, construction is – often unknowingly – one of the most innovative specialist fields out there.

In particular, the pressure to reduce costs for major public contracts regularly promotes inventions – especially in construction technology – that make it possible to land such a contract. These innovations are key factors in the economic success of companies, and as such must be protected.

Construction – Protect the New!