An analysis of world-lesson patents developed by research institutions puts Switzerland in third dwelling globally. A total of 671 Swiss patents in 17 technological fields were analysed for the comparison,which was commissioned by the Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) and carried out by BAK Economics. The results revealed that a third of the patents produced by the ETH Domain were world lesson. According to the authors, a world lesson’ patent is one that is in the top 10% of internationally ranked patents in its field. Two main criteria for ranking the patents internationally were their technological impact (the number of citations of the patents by third parties) and their market coverage (the number of countries in which the patents were filed). Swiss patent quality was especially strong in the areas of drones, and security technology and photovoltaic energy. Only American institutions Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) did ...
Source: swissinfo.ch