Protecting your invention

Tech Life

BBC

Tech News, News, Technology

4.4 • 221 Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we're learning about patents - what they are, and who wants one. And by analysing the global demand for patents, we can see future trends in tech.

Also in this edition of Tech Life, what are doctors and patients around the world saying about the use of artificial intelligence in hospitals ? And we'll be finding out about Google's latest injection of AI into online search.

We enjoy reading the messages being sent in about the one item of tech you simply can't do without. If you want to tell us about your must-have piece of tech, please get in touch by emailing [email protected] or send us a Whatsapp message or voice memo on +44 330 1230 320.

Presenter: Zoe Kleinman Producer: Tom Quinn Editor: Monica Soriano

(Image: A photo of a woman with a lightbulb sticker on her forehead, indicating she's had an idea. Credit: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, it's Lucy Wersley here and we're back with a brand new series of ladies swindlers.
0:07.5	Promise never to mention a word of what is going on.
0:10.0	Join me and my all-female team of detectives as we revisit the audacious crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men.
0:19.4	This is a story of working class women trying to get by in a world made for men. This is a story of working-class women trying to get by.
0:24.3	This is survival.
0:25.3	Join me for the second season of Lady Swindlers, where true crime meets history with a twist.
0:31.3	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:35.2	Welcome to TechLife on the BBC World Service, the programme about technology making an impact on all our lives.
0:42.6	I'm Zoe Kleinman and this week we're learning all about patents, what they are and who wants one.
0:48.9	And how by analysing the global demand for patents, we can spot future trends in tech.
0:54.5	That's in a moment.
0:56.3	What are doctors and patients around the world saying about the growth of AI use in hospitals?
1:01.9	And we'll be finding out about Google's latest injection of artificial intelligence into online search.
1:09.9	Music to online search.
1:30.7	We start this week by looking at something we don't talk about much on tech life.
1:32.8	And by this, I mean patents.
1:35.9	They're an important part of the innovation process,
1:38.0	because once something's been invented,
1:41.5	the inventor often wants to protect it from being copied.
1:44.3	There could be patents for all sorts of things.
2:02.0	Did you guess what they were? I think I heard an old dot matrix printer, a vibrating smartphone and a microwave.
2:08.2	Well, with many thousands of patent applications made for all sorts of technological developments,
	...

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