The location of urban innovation hubs from around the world
is pretty well-known even to everyday consumers. Further, there has
been little change in where these hubs can be found over the past
few decades. While Silicon Valley stalwarts like Google and
Facebook may not be more than a generation old, high-tech
development in that region goes back at least as far as the 1950s.
The tech sector in Tokyo has also remained strong since it first
reached prominence in the latter half of the 20th century.
In more recent years, however, technological innovation has
begun to spread out from these centers to create a more dispersed
global innovation ecosystem, according to the World Intellectual Property Report 2019,
recently released by the World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO). Titled The Geography of Innovation: Local Hotspots,
Global Networks, this report shows that, while innovation hubs
continue to be found in densely populated urban centers, the
stranglehold
