The Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum 2019 started on June 06. Traditionally, the participants of the main business event of the year will discuss ways to develop the Russian and world economy.

“Technologies shaping the future”, one of the thematic clusters, is devoted to the problems of digitalization, development of artificial intelligence, new technologies for industry, healthcare, and cybersecurity.

Transformation of business processes and creation of a new technological structure are impossible without introducing innovations. Does Russia take out enough patents for inventions and technologies that can bring the future closer?

The number of patents in Russia is growing

In 2018, the Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent) received 38 thousand patent applications for inventions that was by 4% more than in 2017. The increase in the number of applications indicates the keeping up patent activity, as well as the existence of intellectual potential and favorable environment for scientific developments. In 2018, there were 256 thousand valid patents for inventions in Russia that is 2,4 times more than in 2004, when this statistics began to be published (see Picture 1).

Picture 1. Dynamics of the number of valid patents for inventions and applications for new patents for inventions; 2004-2018; Russia

Patenting in Russia

Medical and measuring technologies, civil engineering, transport, pharmaceuticals, work with new materials, and developments in the energy sector are most attractive for the Russian inventors (see Picture 2).

Picture 2. The structure of applications for patents for inventions by fields; 2018; Russia

The Russian engineers and scientists create unique technologies that can increase the competitiveness of the economy: harmonic scalpel (Lomonosov Moscow State University), artificial heart muscle (National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET)), device for searching underwater objects under the ice (The Krylov State Research Centre), open space microrobot (Ishlinsky Institute for Problems in Mechanics RAS). These and many other inventions in the field of information technology, engineering and robotics are included in the Top-100 best inventions of 2018 according to Rospatent.

Patenting in the world

The leading direction of the global technological development are computing technologies and energy equipment engineering. These areas accumulate more than 16% of all new patent applications in the world (see Picture 3). To limit the use of promising technologies by other companies, corporate giants create large patent packages. For example, the Chinese company Huawei, leading in production of equipment for networks of the fifth generation 5G, owns about 90 thousand patents, including 2,5 thousands for 5G standard.

There is a huge demand for the development of self-learning machines with artificial intelligence, using neural networks and computer vision, due to which fundamentally new production technologies are created.

Picture 3. The structure of applications for patents for inventions by fields; 2017; all countries

Russia is in the Top-10 countries by the number of patents and applications for inventions

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), more than 7 million inventions are registered in the USA, China and Japan that is 52% of all valid patents in the world. Russia's share is just 1,8%, but it allowed the country to ranked 9th in the Top-10 (see Table 1).

By the number of new applications for registration of inventions, Russia is ranked 7th. The leading China is far ahead of its closest competitors, including the United States: almost half of global applications for registration of inventions filed in the Middle Kingdom.

Table 1. Top-10 countries by the number of valid patents and applications for registration of inventions; 2017

Shaping the future

Rich scientific traditions and intellectual potential provide Russia with a position in the Top-10 world centers by the number of patents for inventions. However, according to Rosstat for 2018, only about 6% of the total number of patented inventions has been introduced.
Insufficient protection of intellectual property rights, limited financing of scientific and technical developments, lack of worthy remuneration of inventors, lack of interest of organizations in the development of the intellectual property system are problems that require speedy solutions. Having overcome them, we can rightly say that Russia has technologies shaping the future, inventors to create and entrepreneurs ready to introduce them.