Eloise Gibson of the New Zealand Herald writes about New Zealand’s struggle to keep up with other countries in terms of invention.
Statistics on patenting show, in fact, that New Zealanders are filing new patents at about a quarter of the average rate – reasons for this could include New Zealand’s low population size and density and low investment in research and technology from both the private and public sectors.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“Dr Hendy, the Wellington-based deputy director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, said New Zealand was “just not putting the money in” to keep up with the likes of Finland, which produced nearly 10 times the OECD average number of patents per person.
“He said patents were generally a good measure of innovation and economic growth.
“For example, when Finland kick-started its economy in the early 1990s, “the number of patents really went through the roof … and of course Nokia came out of that,” he said.”