The World Intellectual Property Report 2011 points out that the global patent applications are continuously increasing, over 6 times compared with 1980s, and intellectual property (IP) rights have become central force to the innovating firms worldwide.
The Report shows that the global patent applications present the following new features:
1. The total amount is increased substantially. Global patent applications rise from 800,000 in the early 1980s to 1.8 million in 2009.
2. Global R&D expenditures surge year by year. The WIPO data shows that global R&D expenditures almost doubled in real terms from 1993 to 2009. Most R&D spending still takes place in high-income countries – around 70 percent of the world total. Low- and middle-income economies have increased their share of global R&D expenditure by 13 percentage points between 1993 and 2009. China accounts for most of this increase – more than 10 percentage points – propelling China to the world’s second largest R&D spender in 2009, which makes China the country with the second largest R&D expenditures.
3. IP rights markets develop vigorously. Knowledge markets based on IP rights are on the rise. Carsten Fink, Chief WIPO Economist, points out that the role of intellectual property is changing from mere specialized technical development to core strength in economic activity. As innovation has become a fundamental driving force of enterprise development, trading markets of intellectual property rights are also becoming more active. Statistic suggests that firms trade and license IP rights more frequently. Internationally, royalty and licensing fee revenue increased from USD 2.8 billion in 1970 to USD 27 billion in 1990, and to approximately USD 180 billion in 2009 – outpacing growth in global GDP. New market intermediaries have emerged, such as IP clearinghouses and brokerages.
4. Patent applications by university and public research organizations continuously increase. Many countries have put in place policies to harness public research for innovation. One element of such policies is to incent patenting by university and public research organizations (PROs) and the subsequent commercial development of their inventions. Accordingly, there has been a marked increase in patent applications by these organizations. University and PRO filings under the WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) have grown from close to zero in the 1980s to more than 15,000 in 2010. In the case of universities, China leads with 2,348 PCT filings from 1980 to 2010.
