Reigning supreme: The world’s patent-pushing innovative leaders

When comparing innovation leaders between countries, a study (of US registered patents since numbering began in 1836) offers some surprising results. As far as being both innovative and having the most patents filed, Taiwan comes out on top, ahead of the others in the top five: Israel, US, Denmark, South Korea and Japan.

Australians are pretty inventive, though we didn’t make Forbes’ 2018 list of the top 100 innovative companies. Forbes’ method is predicated on what they call the ‘innovation premium’, in other words, investors’ hunches based on different companies’ capacity to come up with profitable new growth.

The Martin Prosperity Institute’s 2015 global creativity index had Australia on top — their measures are more to do with talent, technology and tolerance.

Types of patents and top technology

Million of patents (in the form now used) have been lodged. They constitute several types: utility, design, plant and reissue (the latter to correct some mistake in the first patent issued). Utility patents are the most common, making up 91% of patents issued. These relate to the creation or improvement of a product, process or machine. Design patents (about 9% of those granted) cover the ornamental design of a functional product. Plant patents have to do with the finding of a new species of plant. Read more

Eve Ash - SmartCompany - 2 October 2018