Canada’s Changing Intellectual Property

With the conclusion of Canada 3.0, what is the state of Canada’s global competitiveness in terms of intellectual property?

“Mind that bird”, Taiwan and other outliers

According to OECD, China had been innovating its way past competitors in the same fashion as “Mind that Bird” at the 2009 Kentucky Derby.
The biggest outlier, however, was Taiwan. China received more patents than Korea and Germany for third place – behind only US and Japan. Not only was Taiwan innovating in ICT, but it was also a major hitter in nanotech – again, behind only US and Japan. See the first Motion Chart below for details. The “Taiwan Miracle” had propelled Taiwan as one of the major hitters in Asia alongside South Korea, Singapore, and China.

Taiwan’s Moon Shoot

Relative to other countries, Canada’s unique intellectual property was in biotech . . . the organic and non-organic chemistry community in Canada had been creating more intellectual property than the computer community

In the 1950s, 90% of Taiwan’s residents lived in farming communities where agriculture was 30% of Taiwan’s GDP in 1950s. Fifty years later, only 5% of the labour force worked in agriculture and it comprised only 2% of their GDP. Their Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita was $31,834 – just $6,000 behind Canada (IMF, 2009). This industrial revolution was their “moon shot” of the 20th century. Michael Porter of Harvard Business School gave a presentation underscoring this transformation at the Global Leaders Forum in Taiwan last month.

What was Canada’s unique intellectual property on the global stage? Relative to other countries, Canada’s unique intellectual property was in biotech. Not only did Canada edge out Japan for second place behind the US in terms of number of patents granted at USPTO (where patents are granted on a first-to-invent basis), but Canada was also more efficient in the process.

There was another twist in the data. According to CIPO, biotech patents were the least granted in Canada. In fact, biotech patents were second least filed out of the seven categories. What category of patents were granted the most in Canada? Would you be surprised to learn they were civil and mechanical patents?

What are the scorecards and internal metrics used across the digital media ecosystem at the operational level?

There were more non-organic chemistry patents than computer-related patents since 2006. The number of computer-related patents granted per year fell one spot further last year to fourth place. The organic and non-organic chemistry community in Canada had been creating more intellectual property than the computer community. Canada’s ability to create ICT intellectual property with less foreign borrowing and public debt was noteworthy – ranking ahead of Germany and UK.