State of the Innovations

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California was again the nation’s most inventive state in 2004, receiving 23 percent of the 181,322 patents issued by the U.S. Patent Office. New York State claimed a distant second place with 6,618, to California’s 21,602.


California has led the national count in patents for the past 15 years.


Regionally, Southern California companies are mostly known for advances in biotech and medical services, while Northern California leads in the computer and high tech arenas.


Nine out of the top 50 company patent recipients were based in California, according to IFI Claims Patent Database. Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Co. had the most of California companies, with 1,780 new patents, to take fourth place overall.


The University of California system generated 447 patents last year.


“A university’s patent output tends to be proportional to the amount of research dollars they get,” said Ken Polasko of UCLA’s office of intellectual property. Polasko said UCLA brings in about $750 million for research each year, putting it in the top five schools in the country. Last year, UCLA received 30 patents compared to Berkeley’s 33. CalTech had 140.


All universities have incentives for patent production and licensing. If the university ends up licensing the patent and it generates revenue, UCLA gives 35 percent of the revenues back to the inventors, Polasko said.

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