Germany tops the pops in GIPI 4 assessment

The fourth report of the Global Intellectual Property Index (GIPI 4), produced by the Z/Yen Group with support from the City of London Corporation, has just been launched at the London office of sponsoring law firm Taylor Wessing LLP.  The Report tabulates and analyses some 14,000 assessments of the performance of the IP laws of 36 jurisdictions (that's 12 more than GIPI 3 reviewed back in 2011), broken down by 74 objective criteria.  Some general comments on GIPI 4 can be found on the IPKat weblog.

There has been no change at the top of the tree since 2011, so far as patents are concerned, where Germany leads a tight pack with the United Kingdom just behind in second place. This is no doubt a gratifying result for Taylor Wessing as well as for other IP practices which possess a strong Anglo-German profile.  Moving up from fifth to third is the Netherlands, with three first-time entrants -- Sweden, Switzerland and Austria -- occupying the next positions.  Argentina languishes down at the bottom, having achieved the difficult task of finishing below serial weak performers India, Indonesia and Brazil.  Another serial underachiever, China, actually notches up its best result for patents, coming 26th. The criteria that most motivated respondents to score a country high or low for patents were (i) cost-effectiveness of proceedings, (ii) the internal consistency of its judicial decision-making and (iii) the extent to which it appeared to conform to international standards of patentability and enforcement.

You can download a copy of GIPI 4 from the Taylor Wessing website here

To participate in the GIPI survey by rating those jurisdictions with which you are familiar, click on the Z/Yen Group's GIPI login here.