China will be the world’s leading technology innovator by 2012, according to the Scientific division of Thomson Reuters. The company looked at trends in patent filings (and patent awards) and extrapolated the trends forward to make the prediction. During the period 2002-2007, China’s patent filings grew at an annual rate of 34%. Next best was the US at a paltry 13%. But even the US’s performance is better than Japan’s, which actually dropped at an average of 3% per year. More details...