Over the years I’ve met many inventors who have proudly shown me their safety inventions and then uttered the dread words: “All we have to do is get the law changed!” It is the earnest belief of such inventors that their invention is so important that it must become compulsory for all others to use it. I’m not suggesting for one moment that there is also the scent of commercial advantage in the air – heaven forfend – but legislation, as a route to market, is a long and exce

If you, like me, are fascinated by the stories of inventors and their wonderful inventions then you're in for a treat on BBC2 (and BBC iPlayer) at present. 'How We Got to Now' is airing on BBC2, Saturday evenings, 7.35pm. Conceived and presented by innovation expert and best-selling author, Steven Johnson, this series of six programmes explores and explains how inventions have shaped and changed our world - sometimes in the most unexpected of ways. Johnson is an amiable and

My hat’s off to the European Patent Office for managing to do ‘cool’! Who would have thought that a fusty old Patent Office had it in them? - "Where do we stand today when "change is the new status quo”? One of today's most appreciated and Emmy-nominated futurists, Jason Silva, shares his view on innovation and change" says the EPO blurb about this film. This piece particularly resonated with me as twenty years ago I wrote my first editorial for Inventor’s World Magazine. I

“One of the reasons that the QEPrize was founded was to make clear the contribution of engineering to everybody’s lives… He[Dr Robert Langer], as an engineer, developed an engineering solution to a medical problem.” So says Professor Brian Cox who was one of the judges for the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. Chemical Engineer, Dr Robert Langer, of MIT, USA, has changed the lives of millions by inventing methods of drug delivery on a molecular scale. His pioneering wo