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BY PETER KLAREN · LAST REVIEWED SEPTEMBER 2026 · SOURCE: RVO WBSO GUIDE 2026
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QUALIFIES / DOES NOT QUALIFY at a glance
Product development (6)
Process development (6)
Software (8)
Technical-scientific research (6)
Examples by sector
What does not qualify for WBSO
Detailed cases
Frequently asked questions
WBSO examples at a glance
| Project | Possible WBSO? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New machine where existing structures cannot achieve the required accuracy | possible | proprietary technical bottleneck |
| Existing machine built in a larger version | usually not | scaling alone is insufficient |
| Processing bio-based plastic where flow and degradation become unpredictable | possible | technically new process |
| Installing and commissioning a standard production line | usually not | existing technology |
| Proprietary matching algorithm because of a strict latency limit | possible | software-engineering bottleneck |
| Building an online-shop or API integration | usually not | application of existing technology |
| Explaining the cause of unexpected corrosion | possibly technical-scientific research | explanatory technical research |
| Determining the best process setting through test series | usually not | determinative / optimisation work |
WBSO examples: product development (6)
The key issues are the technical uncertainty, what the company develops itself and where regular engineering ends and S&O begins.
Robot arm with higher positioning accuracy
Situation: A machine builder must position a robot arm within ±0.05 mm at higher speed.
Technical bottleneck: Mechanical play and elastic deformation cause deviations; existing bearing and damping concepts do not meet the requirement.
Proprietary development: A proprietary structural and compensation principle, developed and tested iteratively.
Why WBSO may apply: Proprietary technical bottleneck + technically new structure + technical uncertainty.
Outside S&O: Configuring a standard robot arm or merely scaling up an existing model.
Battery system with proprietary thermal management
Situation: An energy-storage manufacturer wants the same energy density in a smaller enclosure.
Technical bottleneck: Fast charging creates hotspots that existing cooling plates cannot dissipate sufficiently.
Proprietary development: A proprietary combination of cell packing, phase-change material and adaptive control.
Why WBSO may apply: New thermal operating principle with performance that is uncertain in advance.
Outside S&O: Designing an enclosure around standard cells without a new thermal principle.
Sensor with a new measurement principle
Situation: Measure vibrations in an oily, high-temperature environment.
Technical bottleneck: Existing sensors lose signal reliability under these conditions.
Proprietary development: A proprietary measurement principle based on an alternative physical effect, including signal processing.
Why WBSO may apply: Technically new measurement principle + uncertain operation under process conditions.
Outside S&O: Merely recalibrating or integrating an existing sensor.
Medical implant with controlled release
Situation: A medtech company wants to release an active substance gradually over six months.
Technical bottleneck: Existing carriers dissolve too quickly or produce dosage peaks.
Proprietary development: A proprietary matrix with controlled degradation rate, tested in accelerated ageing research.
Why WBSO may apply: New material principle + uncertainty about the release profile.
Outside S&O: A standard formulation without a technically new carrier principle.
Electric drive with higher power density
Situation: A manufacturer must deliver 40% more torque within the same flange pattern.
Technical bottleneck: Existing rotor topology cannot meet the target within the thermal budget.
Proprietary development: Proprietary electromagnetic topology and cooling structure.
Why WBSO may apply: Technically new operating principle + uncertainty about thermal management.
Outside S&O: Merely uprating an existing motor using standard material.
Circular composite with natural-fibre reinforcement
Situation: A manufacturer wants to replace part of the glass fibre with natural fibres without losing strength.
Technical bottleneck: Natural fibres show variable adhesion and moisture sensitivity.
Proprietary development: Proprietary fibre treatment and laminate lay-up, validated with destructive testing.
Why WBSO may apply: New material concept with uncertain mechanical performance.
Outside S&O: Merely laminating an existing composite differently using a proven formulation.
Prototype boundary: an experimental prototype used solely to demonstrate the operating principle may form part of the S&O. A saleable prototype or final machine with user value does not automatically qualify.
→ WBSO product development · view the detailed machine case
WBSO examples: process development (6)
Extrusion of bio-based plastic
Situation: A processor wants to increase the throughput of a bio-based compound.
Technical bottleneck: At higher throughput, melt viscosity changes unexpectedly and film thickness becomes unstable; conventional settings are unusable.
Proprietary development: A proprietary combination of screw geometry, temperature zoning and process control, validated through test runs.
Why WBSO may apply: Technically new process principle + experimental validation.
Outside S&O: Merely finding the best settings using the existing screw configuration.
Low-VOC coating at higher line speed
Situation: A coating company must reduce solvent content without losing line speed.
Technical bottleneck: Replacing solvent changes viscosity and film formation to such an extent that the existing application principle fails.
Proprietary development: Proprietary application and drying route, including an adjusted formulation.
Why WBSO may apply: New process design + uncertainty about film quality at higher speed.
Outside S&O: Merely optimising drying temperature.
Heat treatment in a hydrogen atmosphere
Situation: A steel processor must protect a new steel grade against decarburisation.
Technical bottleneck: Existing atmospheres cause surface carbon loss with the new composition.
Proprietary development: Proprietary atmosphere control and temperature profile, tested on specimens.
Why WBSO may apply: New process window + technical uncertainty about material properties.
Outside S&O: Applying a standard time-temperature curve to existing steel.
Chemical process with a continuous route
Situation: A chemical company wants to convert a batch process into a continuous route.
Technical bottleneck: Differences in residence time and heat transfer make behaviour unpredictable; batch scale laws do not apply.
Proprietary development: Proprietary reactor geometry and control, experimentally validated at pilot scale.
Why WBSO may apply: Technically new process route + scale uncertainty.
Outside S&O: Merely increasing the size of the batch.
Converting a residual stream into a new building material
Situation: A circular-economy company processes an industrial residual stream into construction-board material.
Technical bottleneck: Variability in the residual stream makes binding and strength unpredictable.
Proprietary development: Proprietary binder reaction and process route for variable input.
Why WBSO may apply: New process for an unknown composition + mechanical uncertainty.
Outside S&O: Merely scaling up a proven formulation.
Tighter tolerances in grinding-free turning
Situation: A supplier must tighten the tolerance of a turned component by a factor of two.
Technical bottleneck: Temperature drift and clamping stress cause deviations outside the new tolerance.
Proprietary development: Proprietary clamping system and compensation strategy, tested through measurement series.
Why WBSO may apply: New process control + measurable uncertainty.
Outside S&O: Merely fine-tuning existing clamping equipment.
→ WBSO process development · view the bio-based extrusion case
WBSO examples: software (8)
Matching platform with a latency limit
Situation: A SaaS company must compare 250,000 candidates in real time.
Software-engineering problem: Existing data structures cannot achieve the required latency within the memory budget.
Proprietary development: New partitioning and scoring method, implemented in the company's own software.
Why WBSO may apply: Technically new information-technological operating principle + technical uncertainty.
Outside S&O: UI, standard API integrations and cloud configuration.
AI inference on edge hardware
Situation: A vision model must achieve sufficient frame rate on available edge hardware.
Software-engineering problem: The existing model exceeds memory and energy limits; standard runtimes provide no solution.
Proprietary development: Proprietary software for processing, scheduling and model output.
Why WBSO may apply: The technical problem lies in the company's own software, not in applying the model.
Outside S&O: Integrating an existing AI model through an API.
Distributed data platform for sensor streams
Situation: Millions of sensors generate continuous telemetry that must be analysed in real time.
Software-engineering problem: Existing message brokers and databases cannot achieve the required combination of throughput and consistency.
Proprietary development: Proprietary distribution and consistency layer with a new processing pipeline.
Why WBSO may apply: New information-technological operating principle + scale uncertainty.
Outside S&O: Merely scaling an existing platform horizontally.
Embedded control algorithm for an autonomous vehicle
Situation: A machine must navigate autonomously with limited computing power.
Software-engineering problem: Existing planning algorithms are too slow or too large for the embedded target.
Proprietary development: Proprietary reduced algorithm with a new memory and timing architecture.
Why WBSO may apply: Software-engineering bottleneck + uncertain feasibility on the target.
Outside S&O: Merely parameterising standard navigation software.
Proprietary database structure for time series
Situation: An industrial platform must store high-frequency measurement data at one-second granularity and query it immediately.
Software-engineering problem: Generic databases degrade under this combination of writes and reads.
Proprietary development: Proprietary storage and indexing structure for time-series data.
Why WBSO may apply: New data structure with uncertain performance under production load.
Outside S&O: Installing and tuning an existing time-series database.
Security architecture with zero-knowledge verification
Situation: A fintech platform must verify transactions without sharing confidential data.
Software-engineering problem: Existing protocols do not meet the required combination of speed and proof size.
Proprietary development: Proprietary verification protocol and cryptographic implementation.
Why WBSO may apply: Technically new operating principle in software + uncertain performance.
Outside S&O: Applying standard TLS and existing libraries.
Model compression for real-time prediction
Situation: A predictive model must respond within milliseconds in a production environment.
Software-engineering problem: Full models are too slow; existing compression techniques lose too much accuracy.
Proprietary development: Proprietary compression and quantisation method while retaining accuracy.
Why WBSO may apply: Software-engineering bottleneck + uncertain accuracy trade-off.
Outside S&O: Selecting a smaller standard model from a catalogue.
Scalable rendering engine for configurators
Situation: A 3D configurator must render photorealistic previews in the browser on average hardware.
Software-engineering problem: Existing engines cannot achieve the required combination of quality and frame rate without heavy plugins.
Proprietary development: Proprietary rendering pipeline with a new level-of-detail strategy.
Why WBSO may apply: New information-technological operating principle + performance uncertainty.
Outside S&O: Merely tuning an existing engine using settings.
Formal programming language: the technically new solution must actually be implemented as software in a formal programming language. An algorithm, architecture or functional design on its own is not enough.
→ WBSO software · view the detailed matching case
WBSO examples: technical-scientific research (6)
Technical-scientific research is not about solving a bottleneck, but about explaining an unexplained technical phenomenon using a sufficiently concrete, systematic and planned research design at the time of application.
Unexpected delamination under cyclic loading
Situation: A laminate manufacturer observes delamination in layers that calculations indicate should be safe.
Unexplained technical phenomenon: Existing literature and internal knowledge do not explain the mechanism.
Research design: Systematic experiments varying load, temperature and material batches to explain the underlying mechanism.
Why technical-scientific research may apply: Explanatory technical research aimed at new technical knowledge.
Outside S&O: Determining the setting at which the least delamination occurs (optimisation).
Rapid corrosion under specific process conditions
Situation: An installation corrodes faster than the material certificate predicts.
Unexplained technical phenomenon: The cause of the accelerated corrosion under these conditions is unknown.
Research design: Investigation of the chemical mechanism through controlled exposure experiments.
Why technical-scientific research may apply: Explanatory research into the mechanism, not into the best setting.
Outside S&O: A design of experiments that only determines the least corrosive conditions.
Unstable crystallisation in a coating process
Situation: A coating producer observes varying crystal morphologies in apparently identical batches.
Unexplained technical phenomenon: It is unexplained why one batch shows a different morphology.
Research design: Microscopic and calorimetric investigation into nucleation and the growth mechanism.
Why technical-scientific research may apply: New explanatory knowledge about the crystallisation mechanism.
Outside S&O: Determining the temperature at which the desired morphology occurs most frequently.
Premature failure of welded joints
Situation: Welded joints fail earlier than expected on the basis of inspections.
Unexplained technical phenomenon: The failure mechanism cannot be explained using existing knowledge.
Research design: Metallographic and fractographic research into the failure mechanism under varying conditions.
Why technical-scientific research may apply: Explanatory research into the mechanism.
Outside S&O: Merely adjusting the welding protocol until the failures stop.
Abnormal fermentation kinetics in a biotechnology process
Situation: A biotech process shows unexpected delay with a specific substrate combination.
Unexplained technical phenomenon: The biological cause of the delayed kinetics is unknown.
Research design: Controlled fermentation experiments and metabolite analysis to explain the mechanism.
Why technical-scientific research may apply: Explanatory biological-technical research.
Outside S&O: Optimising the nutrient medium until the rate is acceptable.
Heat dissipation from a power module under pulsed load
Situation: An energy module shows thermal degradation that models do not predict.
Unexplained technical phenomenon: The additional heat generation under pulsed loading is unexplained.
Research design: Thermal and electrical characterisation research into the underlying physical effect.
Why technical-scientific research may apply: New physical-technical explanation.
Outside S&O: Determining the duty cycle at which the temperature remains low.
→ WBSO technical-scientific research · view the crystallisation case
Examples by sector
WBSO is not determined by sector. The following sectors commonly appear in practice:
| Sector | Typical WBSO-type example |
|---|---|
| Machine building | New operating principle for positioning, driving or machining |
| Energy technology | Thermal management, power electronics or storage systems with a new topology |
| Electronics | New measurement principle or embedded design with strict timing or energy requirements |
| Medtech | Material or release principle for implants and disposables |
| Biotech | New bioprocesses or explanatory research into biological mechanisms |
| Chemistry | New process routes, catalysts or continuous processes |
| Food | New preservation or texture principles, explanatory research into structure |
| Circular materials | Residual streams converted into new materials with uncertain properties |
| SaaS / software | Proprietary algorithms, data structures and infrastructure with performance bottlenecks |
| AI | Proprietary inference or compression techniques in software, not merely model application |
| Embedded systems | Proprietary control algorithms within strict memory and timing budgets |
| Robotics | New control or compensation principles for accuracy |
Examples that do not qualify for WBSO
| Project | Why not WBSO |
|---|---|
| Scaling an existing machine to a larger version | Scaling without a new technical principle |
| Installing and tuning a standard production line | Application of existing technology |
| Building an online shop or API integration | Functional application, no technically new operating principle |
| Market research into product ideas | No technical development work |
| Applying existing AI models through an API | Application of available technology |
| Optimising process settings through test series | Determinative / optimisation work, no technically new process |
| Improving maintenance planning | Organisational, not S&O |
| Restyling or redesigning the appearance of an existing product | Design, no technically new operating principle |
Detailed WBSO cases
The examples above are intended for recognition: short and representative. If you want to see what a complete WBSO case looks like — from application through administration — see the case page.
| Case | Type |
|---|---|
| Industrial machine with new positioning accuracy | Product development |
| SaaS platform with proprietary matching algorithm | Software |
| Extrusion line for bio-based plastic | Process development |
| Research into crystallisation behaviour in a coating process | Technical-scientific research |
Frequently asked questions about WBSO examples
Which projects qualify for WBSO?
Technically new physical products, production processes or software, and technical-scientific research. The decisive factors are your own technical bottlenecks, your own solution and technical uncertainty.
Does my product have to be new to the market?
No. It is technical novelty for your own company that matters, together with technical bottlenecks and uncertainties.
Does a new app automatically qualify for WBSO?
No. Functionally new software is not automatically technically new software. There must be a software-engineering bottleneck and a new operating principle implemented in software.
Does a prototype qualify for WBSO?
Possibly. An experimental prototype without user value may form part of S&O. Prototypes that can be supplied to customers or used as business assets fall outside this boundary.
Does process optimisation qualify for WBSO?
Not automatically. Merely testing settings and finding the best process window is not S&O. There must be a technically new process principle involving your own bottlenecks.
Does AI qualify for WBSO?
Using AI is not enough in itself. Proprietary technically new software — such as proprietary inference or compression techniques — may qualify. A possible broadening for 2027 has been announced but is not yet final law.
Does scientific research always qualify for WBSO?
No. Technical-scientific research must be both technical and explanatory. Determinative or optimisation research does not qualify.
RELATED PAGES
WBSO pillar → Product development → Process development → Software → Technical-scientific research → Detailed cases → WBSO requirements → WBSO calculation →
Is your project not among the examples?
No two WBSO projects are exactly the same. We assess whether your technical bottleneck, proprietary solution direction or research question may fit within WBSO.
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SOURCES AND SUBSTANTIVE REVIEW
RVO — WBSO Guide 2026
Reviewed by Peter Klaren, WBSO specialist since 2004. Last substantively updated: 21 September 2026.