Moderator: Jeremy Philpott, Communications Manager, EPO

Guests: Yann Ménière, Chief Economist at the EPO and Nick Johnstone, Chief Statistician at the International Energy Agency (IEA)

The latest joint study from the EPO and IEA into low-carbon energy (LCE) technologies shows the urgent need for more innovation to respond to climate change. Many of the technologies we will need to meet carbon neutrality targets in the coming decades are still in development. The experts explain how “classic” green energy production technologies (wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectric) have matured and LCE patenting activity in the last 3 years has been increasing at 3.3% p.a. – barely one quarter the rate seen a decade ago. Innovation is now seen in hydrogen, batteries, smart-grids and carbon capture. Electric vehicles are a particular driver for innovation. The study considered over 420,000 LCE international patent families from the last twenty years, revealing the very different specialisms in LCE technologies around the world.  

epo.org/trends-energy

Moderator: Nigel Clarke, expert in patent information, EPO

Guest: Haider Al-Taie, Team Manager Electric Vehicles, EPO

Electric transportation is key to cutting pollution and creating a greener world. Meet Haider Al-Taie to learn more about this rapidly evolving field and how advances in infrastructure and electric vehicles can take it to the next level!

Moderator: Abderrahim Moumen, director in examination, EPO

Guest: José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez, GNSS Evolutions Signal and Security Principal Engineer, European Space Agency

The novel coronavirus pandemic has presented several problems, not least of which is tracking the spread of a virus that cannot be seen by the naked eye. José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez, co-inventor of the radio signals in the Galileo satellite navigation system, provides insight into pandemic tracking and discusses the future of the world’s most accurate satellite network.

Moderator: Regula von Eggelkraut-Gottanka, Team Manager Proteins and Analysis, EPO

Guests: John Elvesjö and Mårten Skogö 

John Elvesjö and Mårten Skogö are an intellectual property success story. Their patented eye-tracking technology helped them found garage start-up and grow it to a stock-exchange listed company. Today, they are venture capitalists who are guiding a new generation of companies to success.

Moderator: Jeremy Philpott, Communications Manager, EPO

Guest: Norbert Wienold, EPO patent examiner in digital technologies and classification expert

Digital technologies are on the rise – from 5G to AI to the “internet of things”. The fields of digital communications and computer technology comprised over 15% of all patent filings to the EPO last year according to our recently published Patent Index 2020. But which countries or companies are in the lead? And how are the trends changing as these technologies rapidly evolve and converge? Norbert and Jeremy explore and unravel the stories behind the numbers for the technologies driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

See epo.org/patentindex2020

Moderator: Jeremy Philpott, Communications Manager, EPO

Guests: Elsie Cielen, pharmaceuticals expert, and Fredrik Aslund, biotechnology expert; Examiners’ Team Managers at the EPO

Innovation in healthcare and life sciences is more important than ever before. The fields of medical technology, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology comprised over 16.7% of all patent filings to the EPO last year according to our recently published Patent Index 2020. But where has the boom in patent filings come from… and where will it take us in the future? Two experts share their insights into these fascinating technologies.

See epo.org/patentindex2020

Moderator: Jeremy Philpott, Communications Manager, EPO

Guests: Aidan Kendrick, Chief Business Analyst, EPO, and Yann Ménière, Chief Economist, EPO

The EPO’s new Patent Index 2020 reports on the latest trends in patent filings to the EPO. Which companies were filing more, or fewer, patent applications, where were they from, and who was top of the rankings? What were the big technology trends last year? Which sectors are booming and which are declining in the face of the pandemic and its attendant economic impact? For sure 2020 has produced greater diversity in patent filing behaviour than ever predicted. It is a complex, even confusing picture, so to make sense of it all Aidan and Yann review and interpret the statistics which reveal the course of global innovation.

See epo.org/patentindex2020

Moderator: Nigel Clarke, expert in patent information, EPO

Guest: Sonsoles Hernanz, patent examiner, EPO

Advances in metal processing have given countless enterprises a decisive technological advantage ever since the emergence of the first Bronze Age civilisations. More recently, welding even entered the field of plastics. Sonsoles Hernanz has the latest, including on how virtual reality helps to train welders, and how welding enables new products to be created using solid-state metal joining.

Moderator: Rainer Osterwalder, Director, Communication, EPO

Guest: Dr Önder Nomaler, Researcher at UNU-MERIT

Tracing the development of a technology in patents can hold quite a number surprises, Önder Nomaler tells us in his podcast. His method: don’t just consider individual patents, but establish a technology’s trajectory by considering related references such as citations from other patents. You’ll find that many of the green technologies have a non-green - or brown -  origin, as he calls it. Seeing both sides offers a wider view on these technologies, too.

Moderator: Rainer Osterwalder, Director, Communication, EPO

Guest: Dolores Modic, Postdoktor, Nord University Business School

Innovation and IP data are prototypical “big data” troves used by organisations for informed decision making and evidence-based policy development, Dolores Modic explains in her podcast. To facilitate this usage providers such as the EPO need to openly publish their data in a standardised machine-readable form on the Internet for enabling the sets to be interlinked. The IP Linked Open Data map builds bridges by connecting the EPO’s EP Linked Open Data with the Springer SCI Grass data and is available to the public.