Canada ranks 7th among USPTO patent holders

Patents filed by Canadian organizations at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) more than doubled between 1990 and 2002 while those registered by Taiwan and the Republic of Korea increase 33 and 22 times respectively. The findings are part of an ongoing study by the Observatoire des sciences et des technologies (OST), which shows that Canada ranked seventh overall in 2002 with 2,492 patents or 1.7% of the total of 146,994, down 0.6% from 2001. That places Canada ahead of the UK but behind the US, Japan, Germany, France, Taiwan and Korea. In 1990, Canada placed sixth with 1.33% of the total. Within Canada, Quebec-based organizations improved their performance the most rising from 0.35% of the total to 0.6%. Ontario held steady at 0.7%. FMI: www.ost.uqam.ca....