This slide in technology is reflected in broader data: the EU as a whole devotes 1.9% of GDP to spending on research and development, both private and public, compared with 2.9% in the US and 3.3% in Japan. In 2000, innovators in the EU registered 12% of the world’s new patents; a decade later their share of new registrations had fallen to 5%. China’s had risen from 2.5% to 17.3% in that period, three times that in the EU.
