Innovation Pipeline

As the global-technology market grows, it gets harder to gauge innovation. International patent filings are one good way to measure companies’ and countries’ technological leadership.

A recent study of patents by the Kauffman Foundation shows the usual U.S. states leading the pack.

The foundation’s look at universities and industry is also informative. The survey indicates that the bulk of international patent filings seek intellectual-property protection in areas of research like biological and chemical testing. In contrast, industry filings focus more on electronic and medical applications.

By examining these applications, the skilled observer is going to better understand the innovation hot zones and opportunities.

Another key point revealed in the survey: universities and research institutions were responsible for only 8.9 percent of all applications in 1998 and 7.8 percent in 2006.

The top three states with the greatest number of university applications were California, Massachusetts and New York. Following were Texas, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio.

The Kauffman Foundation also found that the University of California system contributed more international patent applications than any of the other 25 universities listed, followed by MIT and Columbia, with 4.4 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively.

Another study, by the World Bank, suggests India needs to clean up its red tape. It says the main reason for India’s low R&D investment is its policy-regulatory environment, which discourages risk taking.

The World Bank report is titled Unleashing India’s innovation: Toward Sustainable and Inclusive Growth .

Less bureaucracy and more public-private partnerships to build the country’s traditional knowledge base could increase national output five times, says the report.

India is not the only country with policy problems. John Chen, CEO of Sybase, asserted in a recent taping of the Charlie Rose show at U.C. Berkeley that the U.S. leadership window is closing fast and that we have five years to get policy and educational focus corrected or lose the lead to countries like India and China, even accounting for the potholes in those nations.

Another hurdle for U.S. innovation, he says, is basic research funding. “We need to spend more on R&D, especially on research. We need complementary applied research coming from universities.”

Despite the fact that the United States has the lion’s share of international patent applications, its share has decreased from 37.4 percent to 34.1 percent in the last four years, as other countries have seen more substantial growth. And that up swell in innovation in countries like China and India is important for policymakers to take note of and understand. Lee Bruno