Patent activity of companies is growing in sectors prioritized by the White House

In 2023, Russian applicants compensated for the decline in foreign patent activity – after a decline in 2022 against the backdrop of the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in 2023, the number of applications from Russian authors increased by 8.7%, to 20.6 thousand. Russian applicants wanted to receive the most active patents in areas such as pharmaceuticals and automobiles, de facto occupying the niches of departed technology suppliers from developed countries – likely in anticipation of the demand that the White House request for “technological sovereignty” will create in the market with already announced priorities.

In 2023, Rospatent received almost the same number of applications for inventions (26.7 thousand) as in 2022 (26.9 thousand), of which 20.6 thousand were Russian and 6.1 thousand foreign. As First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov noted yesterday at the department’s final board meeting, in 2023 “the drop in foreign applications was offset by the increased activity of domestic developers.” The number of Russian applications increased by 8.7% over the year (in 2022 it fell by 3.1%), foreign applications decreased by 24%.

The activity of Russian applicants focused on “critical technologies,” which the White House has already designated as a priority for the concept of “technological sovereignty” of the Russian Federation. Thus, the number of applications in pharmaceuticals increased by 13.6% (up to 701), by 7.9% in the automotive industry (up to 522), by 6.2% in oil production and oil refining, as well as medical technologies (up to 552 and 2523, respectively). ), by 2.7% – in biotechnology (up to 569). In the structure of Russian applications, more than half (52%) are from universities and research institutes, less than a quarter (23.8%) are from individuals, 11.8% are from small and medium-sized businesses, 11.1% are from large companies and 1 .1% – for other legal entities. In quantitative terms, 4,721 applications were received from large businesses and SMEs—the share of “commercial” patents overall decreased from 27.6% of Russian applications in 2022 to 22.9% in 2023. As the secretariat of the first deputy prime minister clarified, 2,286 applications came from large companies (an increase of 23.4%), 1,340 from micro-enterprises (a decrease of 8.5%), 700 from small enterprises (an increase of 24.8%) and 395 – from average (increase by 16.2%). The breakdown by company size was introduced by Rospatent only in 2022, “because now the government is interested in them specifically,” the service explained to Kommersant. Let us note that it is in “small technology companies” (STC) that the White House sees the source of “new ideas in the field of technological innovation” (see “Kommersant” dated May 2, 2023).

“In 2023, the economy began to demonstrate active growth, new promising niches became available,” explains Alexey Poroshin, member of the General Council of Business Russia, General Director of First Group JSC. In addition to the high demand for technological solutions caused by the departure of foreign manufacturers, the development of new technologies was driven by the state, which provides businesses with various support measures, he notes. Natalya Zolotykh, vice-president of Opora Russia, shares his opinion. Thus, in her opinion, the increase in the number of applications is, among other things, the result of the efforts of the government and Rospatent to create effective tools for the protection and commercialization of intellectual property (tax incentives, lending, etc.).

At the board meeting, Andrei Belousov directly named the development of tools for accessible financial support for MTK as one of the tasks of Rospatent. In 2023, a “pilot” for lending secured by intellectual property began working in Moscow (see “Kommersant” dated February 9, 2023). “As part of the project, 266 applications worth 8.2 billion rubles were received, we need to scale it up and start working in other regions,” the official said. So far, however, the results of the “pilot” are modest – seven loans totaling 156 million rubles have been issued secured by a portfolio of patents, trademarks, and software. Lending is hampered by the problem of assessing intangible assets, noted the head of Rospatent, Yuri Zubov. According to him, the department expects to complete work on creating a unified methodology for such an assessment in 2024.

Venera Petrova, Oleg Sapozhkov