Latin America not making much progress in innovation

(Photo: World Intellectual Property Organization)

Most Latin American presidents brag about the supposedly great things they’re doing to spur innovation in their countries. Unfortunately, the latest statistics show they are not making much progress.

According to recently released figures from the Geneva-based United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) the number of international patent applications for new inventions filed by Latin American countries in 2015 remained virtually flat from 2014. There was zero growth in the region’s international patent filings.

Comparatively, China’s patent applications with WIPO rose by 17 percent, South Korea’s 11.5 percent, Israel’s 7.4 percent, and Switzerland and Japan’s by 4.4 percent each.

“In Latin America, there was a healthy growth in patent applications for several years until 2013, and since then things have stagnated, ” WIPO chief economist Carsten Fink told me from Geneva.

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