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.

In an effort to spur greentech innovation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has announced that the next 3,000 green technology patent filings will be eligible for an accelerated review process. About 25,000 pending applications will also be eligible for the pilot program, which could shave as much as a year off the process. Read more at: http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2009/09_33.jsp.

The United Nation’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva recently announced an expansion of its online free searchable patent application database. In addition to containing an existing 1.65 million international patents filed for protection under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) from 30 countries, the database now includes digital information for 1.49 million additional records from the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, Singapore, Vietnam, the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), and Cuba.

As recently explored in an episode of This American Life, high-tech patent litigation has reached unprecedented proportions, with many research-oriented companies now joining the calls to restructure the patent system. This week, the White House released five executive orders and seven legislative recommendations to add transparency to the system and level the playing field for innovators.

Over the past few decades, state and local policymakers have approached the task of increasing regional innovative activity from a number of directions. Leaders have deployed plans to increase the amount of available capital, to train entrepreneurs, to attract research-based companies and other strategies to create a thriving innovation economy. A key issue in this pursuit is how to keep the beneficial results of these efforts local.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) invites public comment on a proposed new patent examination initiative that would provide applicants greater control over the speed with which their applications are examined and promote greater efficiency in the patent examination process. The new "Three-Track" program aims both to provide applicants with the timing of examination they need and to reduce pendency of patent applications.

Life sciences advocates in Arizona are celebrating the passage of HB 2272, a measure to tighten open records laws that require details of intellectual property be disclosed. Passage of the legislation will protect against the loss of current research contracts or the possibility of missed opportunities due to concerns over the state's previous law, according to a statement by the Arizona Bioscience Industry Association (AZBio).

Intellectual property-intensive industries contribute approximately $5 Trillion to U.S. Economy and at least 40 million jobs, according to a new U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) report — Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus. The report highlights 75 industries that use several forms of intellectual property (IP) protections (i.e., patents, copyrights and trademarks) most extensively. Using several economic impact indicators, the authors found that these industries were key drivers of the U.S. economy in 2010 including:

A central tenet in the understanding of regional economic clusters is the idea that the closer two actors are to one another, the more likely they are to collaborate. This belief is based on decades of research done to examine knowledge spillovers and the effect of spatial proximity on tacit knowledge sharing. In a recent article, however, Jasjit Singh of INSEAD and Matt Marx of MIT differentiate the varying effects of crude distance on knowledge sharing compared to the effects of geopolitical borders.

The Patent and Trademark Office of the U.S. Department of Commerce published final rules of practice for implementing the first-inventor-to-file provision of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) that will take effect on March 16. The AIA is a major step towards harmonizing the patent systems of the U.S. and its major trading partners. The legislation will aid the U.S.

In his first speech as secretary of State, John Kerry declared that U.S. economic competitiveness should be the centerpiece of American foreign policy. In the weeks following his appointment, the U.S. government has signaled a push to work with international partners to enhance U.S. global competitiveness and protect tech innovation at home. Two key elements of this strategy include continued harmonization of global antitrust laws and new efforts to protect American intellectual property from theft.

Invention is a driver of economic growth. That is the assertion of Brookings latest report on U.S. patenting and its effect on the country's economic prosperity entitled Patenting Prosperity: Invention and Economic Performance in the United States and its Metropolitan Areas. The U.S.'s innovative capacity and activity has increased steadily, but other nations are catching up and the U.S. must identify the implications of this fact to remain competitive.

Although the economic ramifications of the recent global recession still remain, countries across the world have remained committed to supporting their innovation economies. Several initiatives across the globe highlight these efforts including the European Union (EU) announcing that it will commit significant funding to three innovation-focused programs and an economic development strategy in British Columbia, Canada, to support the province's technology sector and spur job creation.

On September 17, 2012, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) implemented seven provisions of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA) including:

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the Bayh-Dole Act does not grant universities the unlimited right to patents resulting from federal research grants. In a 7-2 vote, the Court found that a professor could sign over the right to intellectual property (IP) that resulted from collaborative research with a private company. Stanford University argued that Bayh-Dole granted universities a right to IP that could not be signed away by the inventor.

The number of annual U.S. patents of all types increased from 82,586 in 2005 to 121,179 in 2010, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). After falling in 2007 and 2008, and making only minor gains in 2009, patents jumped by 27.5 percent last year. Overall, the number of patents grew 46.7 percent between 2005 and 2010, while patents per capita increased by 40.6 percent. California continues to have the highest number of annual patents in the country, generating about one quarter of all U.S. patents in 2010.

A recent report from the Intellectual Property Association revealed the top 300 organizations granted U.S. patents in 2010. IBM, Samsung and Microsoft led this year's list. Fourteen universities, including 13 U.S. institutions and one from China, made the top 300, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Leading universities include the University of California Regents, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the largest overhaul of U.S. patent law in 60 years. Under the new legislation, patent decisions would favor inventors who file for patents first, rather the the current "first-to-invent" system. The change would bring U.S. patent law more in line with the patent systems of Europe and Japan. A similar bill was passed by the Senate in March, which will be reconciled with the House bill in the near future.

Congress has been debating the need to revise U.S. patent law for years, and, while the debate certainly is not over, a significant hurdle was passed last week when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 15-4 to move S.515, as amended, for full Senate consideration. 

U.S. patent activity increased in 2009, after two years of reduced activity, according to statistics from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). U.S. applicants were awarded 95,037 patents in 2009, up from 92,001 in 2008. Last year marked a return to the patenting levels of the early part of the decade, though in 2006 the country had hit an anomalous all-time high with 102,267 patents.

Thomson Reuters has updated their 2008 report on the Chinese boom in patenting. In 2006, the 11th Chinese Five-Year Plan for national economic and social development made innovation a priority, with the goal of creating an "innovation-oriented" society by 2020. Over the past few years, China's increase in overseas patent filings has outpaced other leading countries. The report examines the approaches used by the China government to boost patent activity, including increased R&D expenditures, tax deductions for R&D investments and grants to patent registrants.