Düsseldorf, September 24, 2018 – Germany is one of the most innovative countries in the world. According to the current Global Innovation Index (GII), Germany ranks ninth, maintaining its position from the previous year. At the top of the GII are Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden. The GII is published every year by Cornell University (USA), the French business school INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and assesses the innovative capacity of over 100 countries.
Germany is at the very forefront, in particular in the number of patent applications and was able to reaffirm and further extend its leading position among EU countries. In 2017, applicants from Germany filed 25,490 patents with the European Patent Office (EPO) an increase of 1.9 percent over the previous year. According to the GII, Germany is also well positioned in terms of logistics and investments in research and development. Weaknesses can be seen in the areas of start-ups and new business models.
The rising star in the GII ranking is China: ranked 17th, the country is now among the top 20 for the first time. "The ranking shows that the national innovation strategy of the Chinese government is bearing fruit," said Cornelia Rudloff-Schäffer, President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA), on the occasion of the Gll publication in July. According to the DPMA, the Chinese government intends to increase the number of patent applications in China from 1.38 million in 2017 to two million by 2020.
"It is worth to keeping a close eye on developments in China in the field of intellectual property (IP) rights," says Matthias Waters, patent attorney and partner at Cohausz & Florack. "However, Germany has been able to maintain its leading position in the GII ranking, which shows that the innovative power in the country remains strong. This is also attributed to the well-functioning IP system in Germany and Europe."
