AUSTRALIA’s performance as a producer of protected intellectually property applications has grown steadily since 1999, according to Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr.

But while the nation has improved its performance, Australian still lags its developed-world contemporaries as an innovator on a global basis.

“Activity concerning intellectual property (IP) protection is one of the few measurable indicators of innovation across a range of industries,” Senator Carr said.

The Minister described Australia’s performance as an innovator as “ordinary.”

“This scorecard shows that with the right innovation policy settings we can turn around some of the negatives, including boosting our relatively low levels of business investment in R&D and forging stronger links between public researchers and industry,” Senator Carr said.

“It's also shown that we are recognising the importance of niche areas that have huge potential to create competitive advantage.”

The scorecard shows Australia has improved in terms of patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office, up from 12th in 2004 to 10th in 2006.

The overall ranking of Australians receiving patent grants by the European Patent Office (EPO) remains the same in 2006 as in 2004 at 17th but the number of patents granted to Australians by the EPO grew by 77.5 per cent between 2002 and 2006. 

"This is encouraging, but it also shows that we need to work harder – not simply to keep our place in the rankings – but to improve it because our international competitors are working hard on developing new innovation,” he said.

Senator Carr ordered a review of the National Innovation System as one of his first major actions as Minister.  The report is due to be completed by the end of the year.