First Inventors - Feliks Lobe

Creativity, like innovation, is an important driver of economic and social development. For this reason, Slovenia’s Intellectual Property Office combines its core mission of protecting intellectual property rights with efforts to preserve and disseminate knowledge of Slovenia’s technical heritage. It has therefore decided to highlight the achievements of a number of Slovene inventors who obtained patents for their inventions and left a profound mark on Slovene science, helping to create Slovenia’s technical heritage with inventions that are known around the world.

FELIKS LOBE (1894–1970) may be regarded as one of the founders of modern mechanical engineering. He invented numerous mechanisms and mechanical components while still a student, so distinguishing himself that, after graduation, he took up a post as chief design engineer at an important industrial plant in Vienna, where he designed steam, electric and diesel locomotives and trams. He obtained his first patent in 1916 for a mechanical grab for lifting devices and later obtained seven more, most of them for original solutions related to suspension and drive assemblies on electric locomotives. Before the Second World War he designed and built trams for Ljubljana’s public transport system. These continued to run until the tramway was abolished in 1958. He also did much to develop Slovene technical terminology.