Taiwan Excels at Patent Output and Will Rank No. 6 Worldwide with Increasing Innovation Strength for the Five Years to Come.

　According to the IMD annual report on competitiveness 2007, Taiwan stands out above the rest in the world with its patent output volume and innovations.

　Council of Economic Planning & Development made the public report yesterday on Taiwan’s innovation strength, incorporating the relevant reports produced by various major research institutes including the EIU, WEF and IMD.  IMD giving the best outlooks on Taiwan’s competitiveness indicated in its annual competitiveness report 2007 that Taiwan’s patent output volume excels over the rest in the world where every one thousand corporate R&D population has an annual patent output of 373.

　According to the EIU’s report on evaluation and rating of innovation strength published in May 2007, Taiwan’s innovation strength will rank No. 6 in the world during the 2007-2011 period, second only to Japan in Asia and two places up from the period of 2002-2006.  EIU forecasts that Singapore, South Korea and HK will rank No. 14, 17 and 23 respectively.  As to China, EIU predicts it will move up to No. 54 in the next five years from No. 59 during the 2002-2006 period, namely China will be 48 places behind Taiwan in terms of innovation strength.

　According to EIU report, the ability to put R&D cost under good control is the key to Taiwan’s advance in innovation strength.  In terms of GDP, Taiwan’s R&D expenditure accounts for only 2.52% of its GDP, which is lower than 3.13% in Japan, 2.94% in Switzerland, 2.68% in the US and 3.95% in Sweden.

　In terms of the number of grants of US patent, Taiwan ranks No. 3 with 242 US patent issued for per million population, second only to the US (288) and Japan (265) and followed by Switzerland (178) and Sweden (176).

　The WEF has a similar forecast on innovation strength to the EIU.  According to the WEF report on global competitiveness 2006-2007 published in October 2006, Japan will remain in the leading position and Taiwan will rank No. 9 worldwide and second only to Japan in Asia.

　In contrast, however, Taiwanese patentees have made comparatively few significant or leading innovations, either product patent or process patent.  As such, the government plans to spare no efforts to strengthen the industrial-public-academic tripartite collaboration, including putting in TWD10 billion from the national development fund to invest in mid- and small-sized enterprises under the relevant development project, putting into effect workable mechanism to merchandize patented products to solidify Taiwan’s innovation synergy and competitiveness.  (2007.7)

/EMA