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Law360 (March 25, 2021, 6:45 PM EDT) -- For the third year running, the U.S. has placed second in global patent protection, while China continues to improve its overall rankings, according to a new report released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Singapore continues to top the rankings for global patent protection, but the U.S. maintained silver with Japan, South Korea and Switzerland in this year's list, the second time that the countries have had a four-way tie. This is the third consecutive year that the U.S. has come in at the No. 2 spot, after dropping to an all-time low of No. 12 in 2018.
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The U.S. continues to be a global leader in overall intellectual property rankings when categories such as copyrights and trademarks are included, according to the report.
The international IP environment has also gotten generally stronger, with 32 out of 51 economies improving in their rankings this year — all despite some "negative developments resulting from certain governments' responses to COVID-19," the report adds.
For instance, governments in Israel, Hungary and Russia issued compulsory patent licenses for COVID-19 therapeutics, while Chile, Colombia and Indonesia made cases for new laws that expanded the criteria for compulsory licensing, according to the report.
The annual report also notes that China's overall scores have gone up by 3.9% due to amendments to its intellectual property laws, following its trade deal with the U.S.
The update to China's patent laws outline its "new patent linkage regime and introduce patent term restoration for biopharmaceuticals," and changes were made to the country's copyright laws as well, it said.
These reforms, if implemented effectively, should improve China's domestic IP regime, though it is still "highly challenging" for rights holders, according to the report.
David Hirschmann, CEO and president of the Chamber's global policy center, said in a statement that trade agreements must be "fully and faithfully implemented — and built upon — to harness the benefits which effective IP systems provide."
He added that the countries with the most effective IP frameworks, according to the report, became "trusted partners" in developing solutions to fight the coronavirus in "record time."
"Now is the time to build greater international consensus and capacity on IP, to enable all countries and the next generation to build a sustained economic recovery through ingenuity," Hirschmann said.
--Editing by Nicole Bleier.
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