Useful Stats: Is the U.S. Becoming Less Innovative? Patents per Employee Drop

The number of U.S. patents per employee decreased in 43 states from 2003 to 2007, as patents per employee for the U.S. as a whole declined by 10.3 percent over the same five-year period. To track this metric, SSTI has prepared a table calculating the number of patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) per 100,000 employees for each state. The table also displays the relative ranking of each state from 2003 to 2007, as well as each state's five-year percent change.

For the U.S. in 2007, there were 69.2 patents issued per 100,000 employees. Idaho led the nation in 2007 with 210.1 patents per 100,000 employees. Finishing out the top five were Vermont (179.9), California (144.5), Washington (133.1), and Oregon (132.1). On the other end of the spectrum, Alaska recorded the lowest number of patents per employees, at 7.7 patents per 100,000 workers, followed by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

Only seven states and the District of Columbia experienced an increase in patents per employee from 2003 to 2007. Washington's output increased by 40.3 percent over this period. Rounding out the top five in percentage increases were North Dakota (36.5%), D.C. (36.3%), Rhode Island (15.1%) and Vermont (13.7%).

The SSTI table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/092309t.htm

The state of origin for a patent is based upon the residence of the first-named inventor. Raw USPTO data on patent counts from each state and each state over a twenty-year period is available at: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/cst_all.pdf.