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Intelligent and entertaining conversation about business, money, technology and workplace issues.
Presented by Heather Payton, each programme picks up on trends and returns to stories that have moved out of the headlines. |
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Inventors
How do you picture inventors? Dishevelled hair, odd socks, carrying everything around in tattered plastic bags? Or the groomed-for-television smarty pants we saw on Dragons' Den?
Well there's plenty of scope, because every year 20,000 patent applications are filed by British residents, a fifth of those, or 4,000, by individuals.
British inventors after all have been responsible for electric light, penicillin, the jet engine, the steam engine, television, Viagra, the tin can and the rubber band. And lots more.
That's the good news.
Less encouraging is the fact that only about 2% of all patents applied for make it to market. And there's evidence that the nation that gave the world all these inventions is sliding down the international league.
According to a recent survey, we're now only twelfth in the list of innovators and entrepreneurs, have been overtaken by the likes of Thailand, France, the Netherlands, Finland and Australia.
So - has it become any easier over the years to bring an idea to market and make a success of it? And why are some big companies now actively courting the lone inventor?
GUESTS
David Wardell
Chairman, Institute of Patentees and Inventors
Andrew Ritchie
inventor & entrepreneur, The Brompton bicycle
Dr Andy Goldberg
founder Medical Futures
Tamara Monosoff
inventor & founder Mom Inventors
& author The Mom Inventors Handbook : How To Turn Your Great Idea into The Next Big Thing, published by McGraw Hill.
Dr Neil Macgilp
director corporate R&D Europe, Proctor & Gamble
Trevor Baylis
inventor & founder Trevor Baylis Brands
Dave& Jack Elliott
co-inventors, The Direct Air Dryer
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