World Trade - January 2009 - (Page 13)

TRADEWINDS THE LATEST TRENDS IN THE WORLD OF TRADE China to Emerge as World’s Patent Leader JAPAN, U.S. TO FALL BEHIND China has greatly stepped up its applications for new patents and will pass Japan, the current leader in new patents, by 2012, according to a report released by Thomson Reuters Scientiﬁc. The report found that China is moving away from traditional agriculture and manufacturing industry and concentrating more on innovation, especially in areas such as chemical engineering. “China is set to dominate the patent landscape by 2012 to become the world’s leading innovator,” said Bob Stembridge, a spokesman for Thomson Scientific, one of the research arms of Thomson Reuters. “Inventions from China have been growing at a faster rate than from any region in the world. This has been driven by government incentives,” he explained. These include bonuses worth a year’s salary given to inventors who receive new patents, said Eve Zhou, the consultant who wrote the report. “In China, 16 percent of patents come from academia,” Zhou noted. This compares to 4 percent in the United States and 1 percent in Japan. “That is because the Chinese government has much direction over what technical area should be researched.” Thomson Scientific analyzed the top five patenting authorities globally—Japan, the United States, the European Patent Ofﬁce, South Korea and China. They counted the number of new patents ﬁled from 2001 to 2007 and broke them down by how they were ﬁled—by their own nationals to their national patent authority, or by foreign companies seeking patent protection within the country. “China, from humble beginnings, is experiencing the most rapid growth,” Stembridge said. Transportation Services Index (TSI) Japan has the highest total patent volumes year to year during the period, but the U.S. has been narrowing that lead. For the period, Japan had 37 percent of all new patent applications with 3.5 million. The U.S. had 27 percent, or nearly 2.6 million. China, Korea and Europe each had 12 percent of the share. But China’s year-to-year growth in the sheer number of patents was marked, the report found. Based on the previous five years, Thomson Reuters predicted Japan’s annual growth rate in new patents would fall from 2 percent to -2.7 percent, and the U.S. would stay at around 13 percent to 14 percent, but China would surge from 26.8 percent annual growth to 34 percent. “China is set to surpass Japan in 2011 and the United States in 2012,” Stembridge said. “By 2011, China becomes the most proliﬁc basic patenting authority in the world.” January February 111.5 111.5 November March 110.2 December 109.4 108.8 May 111.4 April 109.4 June 111.5 July 112.9 August 110.8 JCPenney, Pacer Going Green October 109.1 September 108.0 NEW TRUCK FLEET BOASTS CLEANDIESEL TECHNOLOGY J. C. Penney and PDS Trucking, Inc., a subsidiary of Pacer Distribution Services, Inc., have taken a major step toward achieving their goal to convert 100 percent of the truck ﬂeet handling JCPenney’s imports at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to low-emission, clean-diesel technology. Specifically, the companies have taken delivery of more than 20 new Kenworth T-800 tractors that will replace aging diesel trucks currently in use by WWW.WORLDTRADEMAG.COM NOVEMBER 2007 – OCTOBER 2008 The Freight Transportation Services Index (TSI) rose 1.0 percent in October to a level of 109.1 (2000=100), rising after two consecutive monthly declines, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) ofﬁce. TSI is a single seasonally adjusted index of the month-to-month changes in the output of services provided by the for-hire transportation industries, including railroad, air, truck, inland waterways, pipeline, and local transit. 13 http://WWW.WORLDTRADEMAG.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Trade - January 2009

World Trade - January 2009 Contents Supply Chain Finance Conference: The Right Stuff at the Right Time! Is the Dollar's 'Exorbitant Privelege' as the Global Standard at Risk? Supply Chain Watch Tradewinds The Rise of the 4PL An Evolving Tech Backbone Makes 4PL Service More Effective The Changing Landscape of U.S. Railroads Intermodal Grows Up Port of Hamburg Grows as Distribution Point to Eastern Europe Outsourcing Without Fear Measuring the Carbon Footprint

World Trade - January 2009

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