WIPO

Julio Raffo, Head of the Innovation Economy Section of the Department for Economics and Data Analytics at WIPO, and Elodie Carpentier, a WIPO postdoc research fellow, in Sept 2022 appeared on the podcast AUTM-in-the-air, a weekly podcast that brings conversations about the impact of research commercialization and the patent and licensing professionals, innovators, entrepreneurs, and tech transfer leaders who make it happen.

The podcast discussed WIPO’s diverse range of projects, what their research has shown about the impacts of war, COVID, and climate change on the evolution of innovation, and what WIPO is doing to hasten the pace of the slowly closing gender gap in the innovation space.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Authors Elodie Carpentier and Julio Raffo published a 2023 report as part of the WIPO Development Studies, in collaboration with Invent Together, titled “The Global Gender Gap in Innovation and Creativity” in an international comparison of the gender gap in global patenting over the last two decades.

This report analyzes women’s participation in international patent applications between 1999 and 2020 and finds that women are involved in only 23% of all applications, representing 13% of all inventors listed. Women’s participation in patenting varies across regions, sectors, and industries, with higher representation in biotechnology, food chemistry, and pharmaceuticals, and lower in mechanical engineering. Women inventors are more prevalent in academia than in the private sector, and typically work in mostly-male teams or alone. Achieving gender parity will require significant effort, with an estimated target year of 2061 based on current trends.

Click here for the full report.

WIPO’s 2024 World IP Report titled ‘Making Innovation Policy Work for Development’ explores the need for innovation policies to focus on developing innovation capabilities. It offers a new methodological framework, complemented by three industry case studies – agriculture technology, motorcycle and video games – in Brazil, Finland, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Poland and the United States.

Click here for the full report.

This document provides a synopsis of the online conversation that Innovation Council held with experts Dr. Malathi Lakshmikumaran and Dr. Axel Braun to discuss IGC developments and negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Click here for the one pager and to find the full transcript.

Innovation Council spoke online with experts Dr. Malathi Lakshmikumaran and Dr. Axel Braun to discuss IGC developments and negotiations at the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Both are patent lawyers with scientific backgrounds who shared their insight about patent disclosure requirements (PDR) for inventions that are based on genetic resources (GR) and/or associated traditional knowledge (TK) in different countries. They drew attention to shortcomings of the so-called Chair’s text, which is the basis for the WIPO negotiations aimed at delivering a new WIPO international instrument setting forth a PDR. Drawing from their perspectives from both the biopharmaceutical and agriculture biotech sector, they discussed specific examples of problems that arise when PDR-related legislation is unclear.

Click here for the one-pager and for the full transcript.

The Green Technology Book was launched by WIPO at the recent COP27 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. This resource presents a range of innovative green technologies that provide solutions to some of the ever-pressing climate change dangers. The solutions are organized in relation to three sectors, which are the focus of the book: agriculture and forestry, the water sector, and cities. Over 200 technologies are presented alongside information about how they can help climate change adaptation. The premise of the book is that while technologies cannot solve climate change on their own, they can make an important contribution.

For more detail see here: WIPO Green Technology Book

WIPO has released the 2022 Global Innovation Index with Switzerland once again placing first, for a 12th year in a row. The United States has climbed to take second position and the United Kingdom has stayed in fourth, the same as in 2021. Even though there was an expectation for a decrease in R&D after the COVID-19 pandemic, this has not been the case for many of the large corporate companies, with there being an almost 10% increase in R&D in 2021, reaching a figure of over $900 billion in 2021. Some countries increased their R&D budget spending for 2021, such as Germany, while other such as Japan and the United States didn’t. Intellectual Property filling also continued to increase in 2021 with a rise of 15%. Data was also found that 26 countries are outperforming their development with innovation, including countries such as India and Indonesia.

The Global Innovation Index predicts two new innovation waves to come, contradicting those who believe innovation driven growth is going to stay at a low. The Digital Age innovation wave and the Deep Science innovation wave are predicted to be the next two biggest breakthroughs in innovation, but it is well accepted that these will take time. The Digital Age innovation wave would focus on automation and artificial intelligence, while the Deep Science innovation wave is thought to look at bio- and nanotechnologies which would revolutionise science.

Click here to read the full report.

Inclusive innovation ecosystems are a priority for Innovation Council. It is for this reason that we have collaborated with WIPO and Invent Together on preparing these high-level policy panels that will take place on May 31 and June 1.

The event will focus on the importance of designing policies addressing the IP gender gap and engaging women’s participation in the innovation ecosystems of the European region.

Click here for online registration.

Innovation Council’s Jennifer Brant will join other stakeholders from the global IP community to discuss the challenges faced by young, female innovators in the health sector and to offer suggestions as to how the community can best support their endeavours. To participate, register here.