It is interesting to note that many of the world’s most successful countries actually have more patents per capita than the US, Switzerland being chief among them. Here is the list:
1. Switzerland (7th in EPO table) – 7.8 million population /953 inhabitants per application
2. Finland (13) – 5.3 million/1,881
3. Sweden (11) – 9.3 million/1,990
4. Germany (3) – 82 million/2,371
5. Japan (2) – 127 million/2,471
6. Denmark (17) – 5.5 million/2,483
7. Netherlands (9) – 16.5 million/2,596
8. Austria (16) – 8.3 million/3,458
9. Korea (5) – 50 million/3,502
10. Israel (19) – 7.6 million/4,316
11. Belgium (15) – 10.8 million/4,417
12. United States (1) – 310 million /4,861
13. France (6) – 65.5 million/5,471
14. Canada (12) – 34.2 million/8,660
15. United Kingdom (8) – 62 million/9,167
16. Australia (18) – 22.4 million/11,827
17. Italy (10) – 60 million/12,750
18. Spain (14) – 47 million/18,673
19. China (4) – 1.35 billion/71,648
20. India (20) – 1.2 billion/920,245