In 2014 we wrote about a report from the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association which listed the universities worldwide that received the most U.S. utility patents in 2012. That same report for 2014 has now been issued, and once again, the tech transfer companies of the Technion, Weizmann Institute, Hebrew University and Tel-Aviv University all made the list, with 65, 41, 30 and 52 US patents, respectively, but this time they were joined by Ben Gurion University of the Negev, with 22 patents (sharing the final spot on the list with seven other universities). The University of California again topped the list, with 453 patents. Again, of the top 100, most of the non-US universities are located in the Far East (27). The Ecole Polytechnique, Federale de Lausanne was again the only entry for a European university, coming at 86th place with 25 patents, but this time there were three entries for Saudi universities instead of just one.
Of course, numbers of patents are a proxy for who’s doing inventive work, but tell us nothing about the value of that work. Princeton University, not even on the list, is still collecting licensing revenues for the patent that protects the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Alimta® lung cancer drug; by 2010 those revenues had already paid for a new $280 million chemistry building. It’s a safe bet that most of the patents obtained by universities in 2014 will generate no licensing revenue.
Hat tip to Don Zuhn at PatentDocs for posting a piece earlier today about the 2014 NAI/IPO report.