• Save the date for SSTI's 2024 Annual Conference

    Join us December 10-12 in Arizona to connect with and learn from your peers working around the country to strengthen their regional innovation economies. Visit ssticonference.org for more information and sign up to receive updates.

  • Become an SSTI Member

    As the most comprehensive resource available for those involved in technology-based economic development, SSTI offers the services that are needed to help build tech-based economies.  Learn more about membership...

  • Subscribe to the SSTI Weekly Digest

    Each week, the SSTI Weekly Digest delivers the latest breaking news and expert analysis of critical issues affecting the tech-based economic development community. Subscribe today!

U.S. Patents and Patents per 100K Residents by State, 2005-2010

June 08, 2011
  • Forward logo
  • LinkedIn logo

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. Vermont, however, led in patents per capita last year, followed by Washington state. Over the past five years, Hawaii has exhibited the highest rate of growth, increasing its number of patents by 148.3 percent and its patents per capita by 131.1 percent.

SSTI has prepared several tables examining patent growth by state over the past five years. These tables show the number of patents each year, the number of patents per 100,000 residents, and percentage growth of each state in both total and per capita patents.

Hawaii leads the country in absolute and per capita patent growth over the past five years, though this partially is due to a poor performance in 2005. In that year, Hawaii was among the bottom five states in both measures. USPTO provides data at the organizational level for organizations with more than five patents since 2006. Much of Hawaii's increase appears to have been generated by individually-owned patents and organizations with fewer than five patents during the period. The University of Hawaii, IBM, GPNE Corp. and Sixis were the state's most active patentees in 2010. Washington, which had the second highest rate of growth, performed more consistently. Microsoft, Boeing and Amazon contributed to the increase.

Other top states for per capita growth include Utah, Virginia and Vermont. In Utah, Novell, the University of Utah Research Foundation, Autoliv ASP and individual patent owners all had large increases in patent activity between 2005 and 2010. Virginia's AOL, Philip Morris, and DuPont all experienced large upticks in patenting. IBM drove growth in Vermont.

The map below divides the states into quartiles by their growth rate of per capita patenting between 2005 and 2010 (specific data is available here).

intellectual property, useful stats, stats