Even amid record-high patenting activities across the globe, Bangladeshis filed only 418 patent applications in 2022, according to a global report.
The country's number of appeals last year was less than the submission in 2021, according to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)'s annual report.
The report titled 'World Intellectual Property Indicators 2023' also shows that neighbouring India submitted 77,068 applications, Pakistan 908 and Sri Lanka 431 applications in 2022.
Of the applications by Bangladesh last year, 76 were filed by resident Bangladeshis and 342 by non-resident Bangladeshis. Only 7 of them were granted last year.
The report says that Bangladesh's patent applications decreased by 29 from the previous year 2021.
Bangladeshis also filed 13,687 trademark applications, including 8,928 by residents and 4,759 by non-resident Bangladeshis, the report adds.
In a statement on its website, WIPO says that global patenting activity soared to new records in 2022, driven by Indian and Chinese innovators, but an uncertain economic outlook is weighing on further growth.
Even as global filings for trademarks and designs dropped, innovators from around the world submitted 3.46 million patent applications in 2022, marking a third consecutive year of growth, according to WIPO.
China, the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Germany were the countries with the highest numbers of patent filings in 2022.
In releasing the report, WIPO Director General Daren Tang warned that geopolitical instability and an uncertain economic outlook could weigh on the global intellectual property (IP) ecosystem.
He said that IP filings have braved the pandemic to continue to grow, powered by increased levels of innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship and digitalisation in all parts of the world.
"Developing countries are increasingly engines of IP, showing the greatest growth rates as they harness the innovation and creative potential of their people," Tang said.
Earlier in September, WIPO said in its Global Innovation Index 2023 that Bangladesh slipped by three positions to rank 105th among the 132 economies featured in the GII 2023.
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