West to lose innovation race by 2029: report
The US, EU and UK are set to lose their innovation leadership positions to China and South Korea by 2029 if they don’t take steps to improve innovation and commercialisation processes.
According to a new report from the non-profit Center for Advancing Innovation ( CAI), the US has already lost its leadership position in global patent efficiency.
CAI published the “ Innovation Arms Race” today, July 17, in conjunction with research and development (R&D) analytics company PatSnap.
Overall, R&D spending continues to increase with an estimated $2.19 trillion to be spent on R&D globally in 2018. But, over the past 30 years, returns on R&D expenditure have decreased by about 65%.
The report suggested that it costs more for the US and UK to produce a high-quality patent than it does for China, South Korea and Asia. The US and UK reportedly produce approximately 600 patents per $1 billion of R&D spend.
Switzerland and South Korea were named as the most successful countries in terms of patent efficiency (the ability to convert one dollar in R&D spend to a granted patent). As of 2015, Switzerland has produced 1,977 patents per $1 billion, while South Korea was able to produce 1,562 per $1 billion.
The US, EU and UK are also falling behind in their ability to convert patent applications into grants or produce high-quality patents (known as patent effectiveness).
They have “negative or near zero growth rate in producing quality patents for the last 20 years”, said the report, adding: “From 2005 to 2015, the top five countries in the growth of high-quality patents are China, Singapore, Brazil, Israel and India.”
Rosemarie Truman, CEO of CAI, said the report illustrates that the West needs to be more focused and strategic on converting R&D expenditure into “impact and outcomes”.
She added: “The US licenses only 0.3% of federally-funded inventions out. If we could get 1% more inventions out a year, the value at stake is $1.5 trillion to the US economy alone.”
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