4th September 2020, Thimphu: The Department of Intellectual Property (DoIP), Ministry of Economic Affairs attended the 3rd Virtual Meeting of the Heads of Intellectual Property Office(s) Conference (HIPOC) on September 4, 2020. The participants comprised of representatives from IP offices and academic and research institutions from SAARC and ASEAN countries as well as Iran and Mongolia.

The meeting focused on the presentations and discussions of the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2020, which was released by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on September 2, 2020. The theme dedicated for the GII 2020 was “Who will Finance Innovation?”.

Some of the key findings of GII 2020 were:

• The COVID-19 crisis will impact innovation—leaders need to act as they move from containment to recovery
• Innovation finance declines in the current crisis, but there is hope too
• The global innovation landscape is shifting; China, Viet Nam, India, and the Philippines are consistently on the rise
• Stellar innovation performance found in developing economies
• Innovation is concentrated at the level of science and technology clusters in select high-income economies

The top five countries leading the innovation ranking as per the GII 2020 were Switzerland, Sweden, U.S.A, U.K and Netherlands. While Bhutan was not included in the GII ranking, it was decided that the DoIP will make a formal request to WIPO for inclusion of Bhutan in the next GII ranking.

The aim of the GII is to provide insightful data on innovation and to assist policymakers in evaluating their innovation performance and making informed innovation policy decisions.

Besides the DoIP, representatives from RUB, Thimphu TechPark and few members from the National Task Force for 21st Century Economic Roadmap also attended the HIPOC.