The Network Society - University of Massachusetts Amherst

Societies in Transition to the Network Society 47
Figure 2.1 Businesses using the Internet and businesses
receiving orders over the Internet, percentage of
businesses with ten or more employees, 2002 and
2003 or latest available year 1
70
60
50
percent (%)
Singapore
Finland
Israel
Korea
Netherlands
Japan
Ireland
United States
Canada
Sweden
United Kingdom
Chinese Taipei
Total ICT patents
China
Australia
Hungary
France
European Union
Russian Fed
Germany
Norway
Switzerland
Denmark
New Zealand
South Africa
Belgium
Spain
Austria
Italy
India
30
20
10
0
1991
2000
1. The provisional definition of ICT patents is presented in Annex B of the compendium.
2. Cut-off point: countries with more than 100 EPO applications in 2000.
Source: OECD, Patent Database, September 2004.
In a table led by Finland and the USA, Portugal occupied 24th place
in 2004, having climbed one place in relation to 2003. Indeed, Portugal
is accompanied in its leadership of the societies in transition by two
other countries that have also climbed the table: Spain and Chile.
Despite presenting high figures at the technological level, the second
group of countries analyzed here, consisting of Greece, Hungary,
the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy, has lower scores in terms of
their public institutions. The third group, which includes Uruguay,
Brazil, Poland and Argentina, is penalized essentially by the negative
scores for the macro-economic index.
Brazil