TAMPA, Fla. (June 20, 2012) – A new report issued by the Intellectual Property Owners Association lists 11 universities, including 9 American universities plus China's Tsinghua University and National Taiwan University, among the top 300 organizations worldwide to receive patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2011.
While the great majority of organizations receiving patents in 2011 were corporations, the universities making the list for 2011 included the University of California System with 323 patents awarded, MIT (160 patents), Stanford (153 patents), University of Wisconsin (144 patents), University of Texas (125 patents), California Institute of Technology (111 patents), Tsinghua University (104 patents), National Taiwan University (new to the list with 91 patents), University of Illinois (90 patents), University of South Florida, home to the National Academy of Inventors® (86 patents), and University of Michigan (79 patents).
"The IPO report recognizes outstanding patenting accomplishments, and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) congratulates each university on the list," said Dr. Howard J. Federoff, member of the NAI board of directors and executive vice president for health sciences at Georgetown University, an NAI charter member institution. "Patented inventions from universities are critical to the economy of our nation and the world. The role of the academic innovator is vital, particularly for creating businesses and jobs."
This is the second year the National Academy of Inventors (www.academyofinventors.org) has analyzed the American research universities included in the IPO report to determine cost-effectiveness. The "Research Efficiency to Patents Measure" analysis is done by dividing the university's last reported research expenditures (per the National Science Foundation) by the recorded number of patents to yield a general efficiency measure of research expenditures per patent. In this analysis, the most efficient American universities in research expenditures per patent were MIT with $2,860,000 per patent, University of South Florida with $2,861,000, and Caltech with $2,960,000, followed closely by University of Wisconsin, Stanford, and University of Illinois, based on federal research expenditures. Only universities listed in the IPO report were included in the analysis. The complete list can be found on the NAI website.
"As competition for research funding tightens," said Federoff, "a university's ability to utilize funding efficiently may make an important difference in moving discoveries from the laboratory to the market."
The National Academy of Inventors® is a 501(c)(3) organization comprised of U.S. and international universities and non-profit research institutes. It was founded to recognize and encourage inventors with a patent issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students, and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society. Email info@academyofinventors.org; web www.academyofinventors.org