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Chow, Kit Boey; Leo, Kah Mun; Leong, Susanna --- "Singapore" [2007] ELECD 136; in Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham; Chow, Boey Kit (eds), "Innovation Without Patents" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Innovation Without Patents

Editor(s): Suthersanen, Uma; Dutfield, Graham; Chow, Boey Kit

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845429591

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Singapore

Author(s): Chow, Kit Boey; Leo, Kah Mun; Leong, Susanna

Number of pages: 46

Extract:

5. Singapore
Kit Boey Chow, Kah Mun Leo, Susanna Leong

A very detailed study of Singapore was undertaken under the aegis of the Sin-
gapore Intellectual Property Academy. This chapter reflects that study which
provided empirical evidence in order to assess whether Singapore should adopt
a UM regime.


5.1 METHODOLOGY
Three empirically based approaches are adopted in order to offer policymakers
in Singapore a thorough understanding of the specifics of the Singaporean
economy and of the needs and interests of business in Singapore.

The National Survey

The first approach was to survey innovation throughout the Singapore economy
and to find out how much innovation is going on, by whom and in what areas.
This survey indicated the following breakdown of research and development
(R&D) companies in Singapore:

l 40.1 percent of them are foreign companies (that is, wholly owned foreign
companies as well as those with more than 30 percent foreign owner-
ship)
l 48.7 percent are local small and medium sized enterprises
l 11.2 percent are local large enterprises.

Innovation was measured largely by R&D expenditure and patent registration
figures. It was found that the annual compounded R&D growth rate from 1994
to 2002 has been 14.2 percent, and that patent applications by the chosen com-
panies had grown between the same years from 263 to 936. While these findings
strongly suggest that Singapore is becoming increasingly innovative, one should
be careful about drawing too firm conclusions. First, while R&D ...