Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Hold In-House Patent Competition for "Invention Day"

Outstanding Patents Awarded After Reviewing 3,074 Patents and Projects

Hyundai Motor Company and Kia announced on the 19th that they held the in-house patent competition event, "2026 Invention Day," at the Namyang Research Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. The event aims to discover outstanding technology ideas that will lead future mobility and to encourage research and development (R&D) activities among employees.

On the 12th, at the 8th R&D Idea Festival held at Hyundai Kia Motors Namyang Research Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, the Symphony team demonstrated operating navigation through sign language.

Now in its 17th year, this event has expanded its award categories by adding a global R&D division in line with the 2026 theme of the Korean Intellectual Property Office: "A country where everyone is an inventor, a Republic of Korea where dreams come true." The event also strengthened on-site communication programs, further promoting the culture of invention.

From the 3,074 invention patents and projects filed in-house last year, the company selected 58 cases in the mass production-applied patent category, 9 cases in the outstanding patent category, and 2 cases in the outstanding 'i-LAB' (in-house patent incubating activity) category.

Among the 58 award-winning cases in the mass production-applied patent category, developers of the "odor prevention composition containing odorless microorganisms" (Taehee Lee, Principal Researcher) and the "battery cooling system for vehicles" (Jaeyeon Kim, Research Fellow) were selected as representatives to receive awards. Based on criteria such as patent performance, advancement in technology development, and originality, the company awarded two Grand Prizes, two Excellence Awards, four Encouragement Awards, and one award for an overseas research center in the outstanding patent category.

The Grand Prizes went to "lane change strategy considering DCAS (Driver Control Assistance System) regulatory items" (Donghoon Kang, Principal Researcher) and "method for restoring degraded performance in fuel cell vehicles" (Seungho Shin, Principal Researcher). In the newly established "Overseas Research Center" category, the "remote trailer detection and path planning system" (led by Team Leader Errol Doan Shimmer) at the Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc. (HATCI) in the United States received an award.

Additionally, among the 204 i-LAB activities conducted last year, the company selected two Grand Prize winners after evaluating the number of outstanding patents, provision of patent information, and strategic alignment. The Grand Prize recipients were "advancement of battery system (BMS) algorithm development" (Hyunjun Jang, Principal Researcher) and "production technology for lithium-ion and all-solid-state batteries" (Hyunjin Kim, Principal Researcher).

Physicist Professor Sangwook Kim also delivered a special lecture titled "The Physicist's Way of Asking Questions: Stories of Invention and Automobiles." Professor Kim introduced the physicist's approach to problem-solving and shared historical examples of inventions and technological improvements.

A Hyundai Motor Company and Kia official said, "This is a meaningful occasion that helps every employee become the driving force of innovation and turn ideas into reality. We will continue to actively foster an environment where creative ideas can be freely proposed and realized as actual technologies, and we will support these ideas so that they can become core technologies and global intellectual property leading the future mobility market."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.