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TECHNOLOGY
Economist report rates Japan as world's most innovative nation

Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 07:35 EDT
TOKYO — Japan has been given the title of the world's most innovative nation in a recent study conducted by the business information arm of the weekly Economist magazine, the Economist Intelligence Unit. The report ranked Japan, Switzerland, the United States and Sweden as the top four innovators among the 82 economies observed over the period from 2002 to 2006.
The number of patents a country generates per million people was deemed to be the most appropriate measure of innovation and as such Japan, in first place, generates 51% more patents than the United States. "Because Japan's population is only 42% of that of the U.S., its ratio of patents per million population is 3.5 times higher than the United States — and indeed the highest such ratio of all," the report states.
Despite having lower rankings in the so-called "direct factors" which drive innovation, such as telecommunications infrastructure, and still lower rankings in the index measuring the environmental factors conducive to innovation, Japan still managed to top the list. Reasons given for this apparent anomaly include the fact that the Japanese economy has a large proportion of high-technology activities which are often "more innovation-intensive." (Kyodo News)



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