State of Innovation

According to the UN the number of international patents fell for the first time since 1978.  This provides additional evidence that the US and the world are not advancing our state of technology.  The number of US patent issued to US inventors has been flat over the last decade see Foreigners Receive More Patents than U.S.

The World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, received about 155,900 international patent filings last year, a drop of 4.5 percent compared with the nearly 164,000 filings received a year earlier.

The last time we had a downturn in the number of patent issued to US inventors was the 1970s.  The time before that was the 1930s.  The only way to increase real per capita income is to advance our level of technology.  This is more bad news that we are in for an extended economic downturn.