Asia Shift of Global Innovation and Ownership of Innovation Results

As business globalizes, so does innovation. This paper first shows that the gravity center of global innovation has shifted from Europe and North America to Asia. In this paper, innovation is measured by the number of patents generated. The data used are mainly Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent application data stored by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In terms of PCT patent application data, Asia Region accounted for the majority for the first time in 2018 and increased its share in the following year. Second, the paper points out the differences among Asian countries regarding the ownership of inventions created by local inventors. In some countries, PCT patents created by local inventors are mainly filed by domestic companies. In other countries, PCT patents created by local inventors are mainly filed by foreign companies. This difference is found to be associated with the levels of Research and Development (R&D) expenditure per Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Third, the paper highlights that Japanese companies do not perform well enough in using Asian inventors to create their PCT patents compared to the United States (US) companies and German companies.