Indicators of Technological Innovation in Latin American and Caribbean Countries - 2015

The following study is one of the results of CAF’s Technological Patents for Development Initiative carried out between 2013 and 2015. Among the main objectives of this Initiative is the development of a preliminary evaluation of the status of technological innovation in the Latin American and Caribbean region. The objectives are twofold: the first is to present to readers, independently of their background or profession, an easy to understand material that reflects the technological status in the region with empirical data, through indicators defined by CAF. The second objective is to prepare a baseline for the impact evaluation of the initiative, which will allow CAF and its partner institutions to evaluate its importance in the region. In the first phase, this evaluation will be developed through its outputs, that is, an improvement in the countries’ performance both in the generation of invention patent applications, as well as the concessions of patents through these applications. In a second phase, in the medium and long term, the initiative’s impact evaluation will be carried out through its outcomes, that is, the generation of resources originating in royalties, licensing, and sale of intellectual property in international markets in the short term, and an increase of high technology exports from the region to other regions in the world in the long term. This baseline will be adapted to include parameters that are more associated to industrial property during its following phases.