Europe stalling in innovation race

Europe’s share of global patent filings fell to its lowest percentage ever, as China and the US led the innovation race in 2013.

Patent filings increased by 9 per cent year-on-year in 2013 to 2.6 million, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). A third of these, 825,136 were filed in China, the second biggest spender on R&D, followed by the US, the number one spender, where 22 per cent of patents were filed.

The European Patent Office’s share of the world total fell to 5.8 per cent, the lowest on record. The number of new inventions registered by the Office fell by 0.4 per cent year-on-year in 2013. There was also a drop in filings at national patent offices in Europe.

Across the world, "global intellectual property filing trends mirror the broader economic picture,” WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said. "The diverging performance of the world economy appears to be leaving its mark on the global innovation landscape."

Patent applications in Spain dropped by 6.6 per cent last year; by 1.1 per cent in Italy and 1.3 per cent in the UK. Meanwhile, filings in China rose by 26 per cent, in Australia by 13 per cent and in South Korea by 8 per cent.

The data show a huge surge in filings in energy-related technologies such as solar, fuel cell, wind and geothermal energy, and also in computer technology, the fastest growing sector.

WIPO publishes data on intellectual property rights in more than 100 countries.

The gap between China and its counterparts has widened considerably in the last years, a time that has seen China’s State Intellectual Property Office became the world’s top office in terms of patent filings received.

However, Chinese applicants filed only 30,000 patents abroad, compared to around 200,000 each for applicants from the US and Japan.

The rise in patent filings gives strength to the claim that, "strategically, the country... is on a journey from 'made in China' to 'created in China'; away from manufacturing to more knowledge-intensive industries,” said Gurry.