Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry - 55% of inventions since 1945 are British. True or false?

I heard this supposed fact years ago and brushed it off as on of those apocryphal stories, probably a bit of fact past around and distorted over time; it does sound a bit fantastical. However it’s recently turned up again and after a little searching I’ve found a couple of fairly credible sources which suggest there was a genuine report produced. Unfortunately I’m having trouble tracking down a copy of the original report to confirm it and put it into context.

The general theme was that they had conducted a survey and found that 55% of all commercially viable patents since 1945 had originated in the UK and 25% in the US. This may have related only to those patents that had been exploited in Japan.

All I can gather is that it was a survey carried out in 1992 by the Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry. Other than that I can’t find a thing.

www.independent.co.uk...

www.timesonline.co.uk...

Anyone ever seen the original report or maybe some Japanese speakers could see if it’s available on any Japanese government website?


[edit on 22-4-2009 by Mike_A]

[edit on 22-4-2009 by Mike_A]

It wouldn't surprise me at all!
I worked at Philips Electrical (Norelco) in Purley in the Uk in 58-62. I had had a friend who worked in the R&D department, and showed me what they were working on, such as the Cassette recorder, the CD disc, Laser disc, and the various color TV's. There was even a sound system that Philips called the black box. It was about a foot square, and the sound that came out of it was incredible, and this was before Bose came out with their system. But I don't think the black box was ever sold to the public?
There were so many experiments that were done there