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Monday, July 09, 2007

Ms. Danuta Hübner On "Innovating Regional Economies - European Response To Globalisation".

Ms Danuta Hübner, European Commissioner responsible for Regional Policy,

talking on a Seminar "Challenges and Issues for the Spanish Treasury in the global economy" in Santander, July 09, 2007:

"[...] So, how are European regions scoring on innovation? A model examples here can be Stockholm and Eindhoven (Brainport) regions, which are responsible for more than 200 patent applications per million. On the other end of the scale, however, one third of European regions recorded less than one patent per million (in 2000). 86 regions with 123 million people have an innovative performance below the EU average, the great majority being located in new Member States, Spain, Greece, Portugal and southern Italy. [...]"

What I really would like to know is whether such statistics are based on the seat of the patent applicant (then such conclusions as drawn by Ms Hübner would be quite meaningless because of the applicant can sit anywhere on the globe for an invention actually made in some particular region) or on the seat of the inventor(s) (which might lead to some usable statistics).

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I think it would make more sense to analyze combined statistics for patents, industrial designs and trademarks plus geographical indications. That would produce a more accurate picture of economic activitiy for each region. It is obvious that when taking the number of patents alone, it will only tell you how much industrialized a country/region is.

# posted by AS : 10 July, 2007 14:59