Patent Applications - Britain slips further down the League
In Press Release PR/476/200 the WIPO has reported a record year for patent filings: a 6.4% growth over the figure for 2005. Many countries did much better than that - China's growth was 56.8%, Korea's 26.6% and Italy's 16.1%. The USA was average with 6.1%. And the UK with such a "strong economy" as Tony Blair MP reminded us in Parliament yet again the day the figures were published. Well, um, er a 0.8% decline actually. Britain now stands 6th in the PCT table with 5,045 applications - well behind the USA (49.555), Japan (26.906), Germany (16,929), Korea (5,935) and France (5,902). Not a single British company is in the top 50 PCT applicants. There is a Chinese company in the top 50 - Huawei with 575 applications - not to mention several Koreans, French, Scandinavians and a whole slew of Germans, Japanese and Americans. And we have an economy - some would have us believe - that is strong enough to quit the EU. The government can't be happy with that performan...