Created: 2025.09.18. 13:56
A significant milestone in industrial property protection has been reached by one of the healthcare innovations of the Digital Development Centre at Széchenyi István University: the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office has granted utility model protection for the development. The multimedia system, created by researchers at the University in Győr, enables the live transmission of surgeries with potentially hundreds of participants, thereby facilitating both educational and professional activities in hospitals.
For many years, Széchenyi István University has maintained an excellent partnership with the Petz Aladár University Teaching Hospital in Győr-Moson-Sopron County. As a result of this collaboration, the two institutions have worked together on numerous health technology projects. Recently, a development that represents a digital leap forward has reached an important milestone: the MedTech & SportTech Division of the University’s Digital Development Centre has obtained utility model protection for its multimedia transmission system.
The surgical streaming platform is designed to transmit minimally invasive, endoscopic, and laparoscopic surgeries in real time over the hospital’s internal network, thereby contributing to the continuous professional development of healthcare practitioners. This innovation greatly supports education while significantly reducing the logistical burdens associated with surgical observation. Researchers at the University have been working on this innovation for nearly three years, during which time they have successfully carried out multiple transmissions with the professional support of Petz Aladár Hospital.
Dr Balázs Villányi, Medical Director of the Petz Aladár University Teaching Hospital; Dr Péter Prukner, Head of the MedTech & SportTech Division at the Digital Development Centre of Széchenyi István University; and Dr Zsolt Szepesváry, Head of the Department of Urology at Petz Hospital and Vice-Dean for Development of the University’s Faculty of Health and Sports Sciences, with the transmission device. (Photo: András Adorján)
“The advantage of this system is that it not only transmits the image from the medical device but also displays the surgeon’s actions, which greatly facilitates the educational process,” explained Dr Péter Prukner, Head of the MedTech & SportTech Division. He added that, to date, most of the transmissions have involved urological procedures, but the system is capable of broadcasting surgeries across all medical specialties. Moreover, it features several different video and audio inputs, allowing multiple devices to be connected simultaneously. He noted that although only a prototype has been produced thus far, further development is already underway, alongside the exploration of commercialization opportunities.
“At the Digital Development Centre, our goal is to meet real market needs with our innovations, which we submit to the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office as intellectual creations, with the assistance of the University’s Centre for Higher Education and Industrial Cooperation (FIEK). We believe it is important that, in this way, we contribute to the institution’s scientific advancement and international recognition. It is a great success for us that eight intellectual creations have already been disclosed this year, three of which are currently undergoing patent application procedures,” explained Szilvia Vadász-Kalocsai, an international expert at the Centre. The specialist, who is pursuing her PhD in innovation at the University’s Doctoral School of Regional- and Business Administration Sciences, revealed that their aim is to elevate the industrial property protection of developments to the international level and to transfer intellectual property for the benefit of the economy, industry and academia.
The researchers received support in patent-related matters from FIEK, particularly from innovation manager Zsolt Kohus, whose responsibility is to manage and expand the University’s industrial property portfolio. “Across many faculties and other organizational units—including the Digital Development Centre—work is underway that yields results not only suitable for academic publication but also for commercialization as valuable products for the business sector. The multimedia transmission system, which has now been granted utility model protection and spans multiple fields of science, is a perfect example of this,” he emphasized. He further underlined that successes such as this require effective communication among inventors, intellectual property professionals, patent attorneys, and the specialized authorities overseeing industrial property procedures—a process in which he and his colleagues are pleased to assist all members of the University community.
