AS per the OECD Report, the quality of patent filings has fallen dramatically over the past two decades. The rush to protect even minor improvements in products or services is overburdening patent offices. This slows the time to market for true innovations and reduces the potential for breakthrough inventions, adds the new OECD report.

The Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2011 finds that patent quality has declined by an average of around 20 per cent between the 1990s and 2000s, a pattern seen in nearly all countries studied.

Studying patent quality in different sectors has also allowed the OECD to assess which countries are doing best in innovation. The United Kingdom, for example, produces semiconductor and environmental technology patents that are above average in quality. Korea has a competitive advantage in ICT-related innovations. And Germany is strong at innovating in solar energy.

Patents from inventors in the United States, Germany and Japan are the most highly cited, which suggests they are true innovations being used by many firms in their products to generate further innovations. But while these countries produced about 70% of the top 1% of highly cited patents between 1996 and 2000, their share had fallen to 60% five years later.

The Nordic countries and China, India and Korea have seen their share increase of highly cited patents. The European Union is leading in clean energy technologies, representing nearly 40% of all filings by the late 2000s, followed by the US and Japan. In this area, China now ranks 8th worldwide.