Innovation is increasingly becoming global. The developed or rich countries are much ahead of the developing or poor countries as they make huge investment on education, research, science and technology.
Nevertheless, the developing countries have also made some progress. Headed by China, they are gradually advancing and some are consolidating their positions in the world of innovation.
This is clearly reflected on the latest global report on innovation. The report jointly prepared by World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Cornell University and the Business School for the World (INSEAD) was published last month. Titled as Global Innovation Index-2016, it is the 10th annual report that presented the levels and dimensions of the innovativeness of 128 countries.
To put it simply, innovation is an endeavour of improving or making a significant contribution to an existing product, service or process. It is generally believed that entrepreneurs prefer to put money on innovation than invention. Invention is the creation of a product or introduction of a process or service for the first time.
The latest global innovation index shows that China has joined the club of most innovative nations. Ranked 29th last year, it is now the 25th innovative country in the world. India has also shown better performance, jumped 15 spots in the index and ranked 66th from last year's 81st place in the index. Some African countries have made impressive performance. Mauritius has become 53rd followed by South Africa (54th), Kenya (80th), Rwanda (83rd), Mozambique (84th) and Botswana (90th).
In fact, some African countries are comparatively in better position compare to their Asian peers. Sri Lanka and Bhutan ranked 91st and 96th respectively while Nepal became 115th. Though Bangladesh advanced 12 spots in the innovation index to 117th from the earlier 129th, the country is actually among the group of 15 economies which have the lowest scores in the index indicating limited innovativeness. Pakistan, however, ranked 119 in this year's rankings from 131 in last year.
WEAK IP REGIME: Bangladesh is poor in intellectual property (IP) development which is reflected in the innovation index. The country produces few Ph.Ds in science and engineering and its investment on research and development is quite low.
On three major intellectual property indicators - patent, trademarks and industrial designs -- Bangladesh still lags behind many countries. The country's weakness in patent is more prevalent than two others indicators.
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) rankings of total IP filing activities in 2014, Bangladesh ranked 105th among 120 countries on filling patent applications.
In Bangladesh, the total number of filing new patent applications stood at 340 in 2015 which was 293 in 2014. Only 40 applications came from local or resident sources while rest 300 from foreign or non-resident sources. Again, total number of approved patent applications declined to 101 last year from 121 in 2014. Of the total approved applications, only 11 were local while rest 90 were non-resident. Thus, local innovations are very limited in Bangladesh.
Non-resident applicant means resident or citizen of any other country who filed applications for patent or trademark. Protection of intellectual property is local. Those who seek protection of these properties have to apply for patent or trademark protection in the countries they want protection.
WIPO definition describes patent as a 'set of exclusive right granted by laws to applicants for innovations that are new, non-obvious and commercially applicable.'
Local entrepreneurs and businesses, however, lead on applying for and getting new industrial designs in the country. Statistics available with Department of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (DPDT), under the Ministry of Industry, showed that 1376 applications of new industrial designs were filed last year. Of these, 1284 originated from local or resident sources while the rest 92 from non-resident sources. Approval of designs is low. In 2013, about 984 new industrial designs got approval from the Department of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (DPTD) and the figure came down to 802 in 2014 and 771 in 2015.
Industrial designs are generally applicable to a wide variety of industrial products and handicrafts. They refer to the ornamental and aesthetic aspects of a useful article including compositions of lines or colours or any three dimensional forms that gives a special appearance to a product or handicraft. WIPO said that the holder of a registered industrial design has exclusive right against unauthorised copying or imitating of the design by third parties. At the global level, Bangladesh ranked 42nd on filing industrial design in 2014.
The number of application for new trademarks and approved trademarks increased in Bangladesh by 7.0 per cent and 8.4 per cent respectively last year. Of the total approved trademarks, 1130 were local and 3392 were foreign or non-resident while of the total applications, 9322 were local and 3487 applications were non-resident.
Trademark is a sign used by the owner of a certain products or provider of certain services to distinguish them from the existing products and services in the market or of the other parties. A trademark can consist of words and combination of words (slogan), logos, figures and images, letters, numbers, sounds and moving images or a combination of those.
GOING GLOBAL: At the global level, international patent filing rose by 1.7 per cent last year. The filing process is known as patent applications filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The system facilitates the patent application globally, in the countries which have signed the treaty, by filing a single international application. Such application from Bangladesh is rare. In 2014, only two applications were filed by Bangladeshis while there was no such application last year.
Entrepreneurs based in the United States of America filed the highest number of such applications last year - about 57,385. The US is followed by Japan (44,235), China (29,846) and South Korea (14,626). Filing from India stood at 1423 which was 1428 in 2014.
The zero international application of patent from Bangladesh and the small number of local applications within the country present a dismal scenario of its effort on innovation.
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