The Italy of technology: what do patents how?

Daniele Archibugi, Vitantonio Mariella, Antonio Vezzani

DOI: 10.36134/PBDSU-2024-2 Download as a .PDF file

Patent analysis allows for the anticipation of products, processes, and services that will be introduced to the market several years in advance. Monitoring patent trends is therefore highly useful to understand which sectors will emerge globally and to assess how a company or an entire nation positions itself within them.

In the fourth Report on Research and Innovation of the DSU-CNR, we examined emerging sectors based on patent statistics. The results indicate that digital technologies are far from completing their development and, in fact, they will continue to proliferate, also due to novel applications in other industrial sectors. Additionally, there is a particularly strong growth in digital technologies directly related to communication and management.

The data confirm Italy’s secondary role in patents, with the total number of inventions being less than half of those registered by French inventors and less than one-fifth of those registered by German inventors.

The implications for research and innovation policies underscore the need to support the activities of Italian companies so that they can base their competitiveness not only on cost and design factors but also on technological skills.

How to cite

Archibugi, D., Mariella, V., Vezzani, A. (2024). L’Italia della tecnologia: che cosa mostrano i brevetti? (DSU Policy brief 2). CNR-Dipartimento di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Patrimonio culturale.
https://doi.org/10.36134/PBDSU-2024-2