49 episodes listed below
Invention explained from ideas to impact.
Talk innovation: unlocking technology follows the mechanics and human stakes behind invention, from quantum computing and digital agriculture to cancer treatment and rare earth recycling. Its episodes pair accessible explanations with patent-focused context from EPO voices, researchers, entrepreneurs, and patent examiners.
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Talk innovation: unlocking technology looks at invention from the place where science, industry, patents, and public impact meet. The series is produced around the European Patent Office’s perspective, but its recent episodes are not narrow procedural briefings. They explain technologies by following the problem each invention is trying to solve. A discussion of video streaming becomes a plain-language tour through mobile broadband, radio signals, cloud servers, and compression. A 3D printing episode moves from familiar additive manufacturing to the challenge of making tools in space and working with materials already found on the moon or Mars. The show is strongest when it connects technical detail to a larger system. Rare earth recycling is framed through electronic waste, hazardous phosphor powder, mercury removal, and the difficult business of turning lab work into a scalable process. Digital agriculture is treated as an ecosystem of drones, sensors, image recognition, GPS, satellite imagery, robotics, software, AI, startups, universities, and farmers. Quantum computing is presented as both a delicate engineering challenge and a strategic issue for Europe. Health-focused episodes bring the same explanatory patience to checkpoint inhibitors, cancer treatment, and medical uses of Botox. The human side matters too. Professor Dame Carol Robinson’s story brings career breaks, mass spectrometry, and women in STEM into the same conversation as patenting and entrepreneurship gaps. Marie Perrin’s episode shows how scientific training can become a company-building process, with all the uncertainty that implies. Jérôme Guérin’s conversation examines the tension and synergy between public research and startup work. The show’s regular style is careful, accessible, and optimistic without becoming breathless. It often uses vivid analogies, but it returns quickly to mechanisms, data, and applications. Patent examiners and EPO Observatory contributors give the episodes a specialist backbone. Guests supply lived experience from labs, companies, research institutions, and emerging technology fields. The result is a technology show for people who want to understand not only what is new, but how new ideas are tested, protected, funded, scaled, and put to work.
Made for: For listeners interested in emerging technology, patents, research commercialization, European innovation policy, and the people turning technical ideas into practical tools. It fits curious generalists as well as researchers, engineers, startups, and policy-minded technology watchers.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by pairing accessible science storytelling with the patent and innovation-data perspective of EPO patent examiners and Observatory contributors. It treats inventions as technical objects, business challenges, and public-impact questions at the same time.
“Talk innovation: unlocking technology” is brought to you by the European Patent Office (EPO). Expert presenters and guests – including our patent examiners - provide their perspective on technology trends and highlight ground-breaking inventions. Join us to learn more on the role of patents and the intellectual property (IP) system in supporting society and the economy. Opinions expressed by podcast participants are their own and may not reflect the views of the EPO.
A smashed lamp meets patent strategy; your tech curiosity gets past the shiny invention.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A candid return-to-science story after parenthood, set against Europe’s persistent gender gap in innovation.
Women in STEM are graduating in record numbers across Europe, yet their presence falls away in patenting, tech startups, boardrooms, and the wider machinery of innovation.
A measured look at quantum hardware, industrial ambition, and Europe's next computing platform.
Europe's quantum push receives a steady, accessible treatment, opening with a kitchen-stove analogy before moving into labs shaped by cylindrical machines, extreme cooling, and hardware vulnerable to vibration and temperature.
A practical, grounded look at turning lamp waste into a workable route for rare earth recovery.
Rare earth recycling feels unusually concrete here, as Marie Perrin of Recover explains why the challenge is not just locating rare earths in waste, but pushing a promising method toward something industry can actually use.
A clear, human account of keeping public research and biotech work in the same frame.
Public research feels unusually concrete in Jerome Guerin's account of a career split between a public institute and a biotech company. He describes how basic work, translational aims, patents, scientific meetings, and company-building could feed one another rather than sit in…
Patent professionals weigh AI's practical promise against legal context, skill erosion, and expert judgment.
Patent work is turning into a useful test of where AI can help expert fields, and where it still needs careful handling. Talk Innovation keeps the focus broader than speed alone, with Marguerite McCahan of the European Patent Office's Communication Department presenting AI as…
Corrosion industry conversations from inside AMPP.
Ceramic and glass careers, told one person at a time.
["Talk Innovation's women-in-STEM episode follows Professor Dame Kyle Robinson from leaving school at 16 to building a career in mass spectrometry, Oxford, and Omas Therapeutics.", "She describes starting at Pfizer, learning on a mass spectrometer that was always breaking, and treating the instrument like detective work to work out molecular structures.", "The interview covers a two-year PhD without funding, a career break for three children, imposter syndrome at Cambridge, and the later move from academic papers into patents and a spin-out.", "Victor Arribas anchors that personal story in an EPO Observatory report saying women are less than 10% of European patenting startup founders, with Spain at 19%."]
Patent examiner Cristina Margarido interviews colleague Marisa Stuffs about video coding and compression inventions that enable video streaming on smartphones.
Patent examiner Cristina Margarido asks materials scientist Inga Elga-Dotir how additive manufacturing could address space logistics and child battery safety.
Marguerite McCahan of the European Patent Office uses EPO Talk Innovation's 'Quantum in Europe: high stakes for emerging tech' to frame quantum computing as a field that could reshape drug discovery, climate simulation, and encryption.
Marie Perrin explains how Recover turns rare-earth-rich waste such as compact fluorescent lamps into reusable materials, with europium levels about 20 times higher than in natural ores.
Jérôme Guérin says an evaluator told him he had become "into business" rather than science after creating AllioDx, even though he still saw himself as a researcher.
More than half of IP professionals already use AI, according to a Questel survey cited by Marguerite McCahan of the European Patent Office.
Relief Paper uses municipal leaf collections to supply papermaking fibers, storing autumn deliveries in covered bales for year-round production.
This episode explores the role of graphene and additive manufacturing in creating a sustainable future, highlighting their potential to reduce carbon footprints.
This episode explores how innovation and patents can help sustainably feed a growing global population amid climate change and reduced farmland.
This episode explores current space technologies and their terrestrial applications, including manufacturing in space and water recycling in Morocco.
Avelino Corma discusses his career in heterogeneous catalysis, winning the European Inventor Award, and the role of patents in funding research.
EPO experts discuss the impact of AI on innovation and its future, based on the latest patent index.