79% Of Australian Patents Were Filed By Foreign Companies In 2015

Aussie companies were responsible for filing just 21% of the total patent applications in Australia last year, with the USA claiming the top spot. To put it another way, non-residents were responsible for most of the innovation taking place in our country. Lift your game, Aussie inventors!

The chart above comes from machine intelligence company GreyB Research. As it shows, Australian companies were responsible for filing just 21% of the total patents in 2015, with the remaining 79% filed by foreign companies. On a country by country basis, the United States Of America filed the most patents by far, with Halliburton, Apple and General Electric leading the charge:

United States of America claims the first spot as a priority country for the patents filed in Australia. It is followed by Australia itself while the European region claims the third place. Nearly 45% of all patents filed in Australia claim a US priority.

When ranked by company, Samsung was one of the most prolific patent filers in Australia. Its number of applications grew from 103 in 2010 to 1175 in 2016. US company Halliburton, with its interests in drilling and mining, filed the most patents overall (1286).

As GreyB Research surmises, R&D investment by both private and government entities is low in Australia compared to other OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Furthermore, the “wagon of innovation” is being driven by foreign countries and continues to slide. You can read the rest of the report here.

[Via GreyB Research]


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