Wednesday, Mar 02, 2011

Gulf News

Qatar notches biggest year-on-year growth of 600% followed by Oman with 100%

Dubai: International patent filings by Gulf countries under the World Intellectual Property Organisations (Wipo) Patent Cooperation Treaty rose 14.56 per cent to 118 last year compared to 103 in 2009 despite troubled economic conditions, according to provisional data issued by Wipo said.

Saudi Arabia had the most patent filings with 78 followed by the UAE with 29, Qatar with 7, Oman with 4 while Kuwait and Bahrain with nothing last year.

Among the Gulf countries, Qatar had the biggest year-on-year growth of 600 per cent followed by Oman with 100 per cent while UAE had a marginal growth of 3.57 per cent.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia had the biggest year-on-year growth of 16.66 per cent in 2009.

After the 2009 economic crisis, overall [global] Patent Cooperation Treaty [PCT] filings recovered slightly last year almost reaching the 2008 level, Francis Gurry, Director of Wipo, said.

He said the fast growth rates from East Asia reflect acceleration in the geographic diversification of innovative activities. This trend has many implications, not least an increased linguistic diversity of the technology that patent offices use as a basis for determining whether an invention is patentable.

UAEs showing

He said the UAE had four patents in medical technology, three patents each in civil engineering and transport, and two patents each in pharmaceuticals, measurement and digital communication.

This is an indication of a broad recognition that it makes good business sense, whatever the economic conditions, to continue to protect commercially valuable technologies internationally, Wipo director-general Gurry said.

The group is optimistic about continued PCT filing growth this year, but a lot will depend on the health of the world economy .

Global patent filings rose 4.8 per cent to 162,900 in 2010 compared to 155,398 applications filed in 2009 with strong growth from China (+56.2 per cent), the Republic of Korea (+20.5), and Japan (+7.9), offsetting a mixed performance in European countries and a continued decline in the United States (-1.7).

Despite a 1.7 per cent fall last year, the US remains the largest user of the PCT system with 44,855 applications, followed by Japan (32,156) and Germany (17,171). China (12,337) overtook the Republic of Korea (9,686) last year as the fourth-ranked PCT filing country.

The report said that Panasonic Corporation (Japan, 2,154) kept the top spot in the list of PCT applications published in 2010, followed by Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE Corporation (1,863), and Qualcomm Incorporated (US, 1,677). A second Chinese company Huawei Technologies (1,528) occupies the fourth rank, followed by Koninklijke Philips Electronics (Netherlands, 1,435 applications), Robert Bosch (Germany, 1,301 applications), and LG Electronics (South Korea, 1,298 applications). The PCT has 142 member states.

He said the copyright system needs to evolve in keeping with current technological realities or risk becoming irrelevant. There is no single magical answer to the development of a successful policy response to the challenges facing copyright in the digital age, but a combination of law, infrastructure, cultural change, institutional collaboration and better business models, he said.

By Naushad K, Cherrayil, Staff Reporter

Gulf News 2011. All rights reserved.