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