UT Ranks 5th in the World for Patents

By Rose Cahalan in Blog on June 11, 2014 at 4:09 pm | 1 Comment

The lithium-ion battery. Ethernet. And a polymer technology that prevents abuse of the drug Oxycontin.

Those are just three of the many significant creations patented by Longhorn inventors (Chemistry’s John Goodenough, Engineering’s Bob Metcalfe, and Pharmacy’s James McGinity, respectively). There are hundreds more—and last year, Longhorns invented enough new devices to get UT ranked in the top five for patents worldwide.

A joint effort of the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Association, the ranking compiled the top 100 universities which were granted the most utility patents in 2013. Utility patents, as opposed to design patents, are those which protect a new or useful process. With 169 utility patents in 2013, UT placed fifth on the list. (Unfortunately, Stanford beat us out by just one patent—we’ll have to catch those rascally Californians next year.)

See the top 10 below, and check out the full 100 here.

1. University of California (399 patents)

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (281)

3. Tsinghua University (193)

4. Stanford University (170)

5. University of Texas (169)

6. Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (160)

7. California Institute of Technology (147)

8. Columbia University (104)

9. Georgia Tech Research Corp. (98)

10. University of Michigan (97)

Photo courtesy Miguelángel Guédez on Flickr.