Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Patents and South East Asia

How a nation's media reports news can be instructive. Indonesia's press frequently report about patent news from overseas. In late March Bisnis Indonesia reported on WIPO's patent data release for 2010. Japan, South Korea and China of course lead the way. Panasonic, ZTE, Huawei, LG and Sharp are the top 5 PCT filers from Asia. Singapore's AStar made a showing, the only ASEAN company in the list. See my earlier post on ASEAN's weakness in patent filing here.

Mr Sudarmanto head of Indonesia's ASPEKI, the Association of IP managers was quoted as unsurprised that no Indonesian company made the top 100, citing the lack of recognition for patents as valuable for companies and insufficient collaboration between private companies who struggle with the cost of research and public institutions who are focused on it but cannot commercialise it.

ASEAN nations urgently need to up their R&D game. The easy measurement is patents filed. Right now WIPO suggests East Asia is roaring ahead of it's ASEAN neighbours.

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