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U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
Electronic Information Products Division
Patent Technology Monitoring Branch (PTMB)

CALENDAR YEAR 2004
PRELIMINARY LIST OF TOP PATENTING U.S. UNIVERSITIES *

(report dated 16-Mar-2005)

This report presents a preliminary list of the U.S. universities receiving the most patents for invention (i.e., utility patents) during the 2004 calendar year.

This table displays a preliminary listing of the top twenty U.S. universities receiving utility patents in calendar year 2004.
Preliminary Rank
in 2004 *		 Preliminary number
of patents
in 2004 *		 U.S. University * (Final Rank
in 2003)		 (Final number
of patents
in 2003)
1 424 University of California (1) (439)
2 135 California Institute of Technology (2) (139)
3 132 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (3) (127)
4 101 University of Texas (4) (96)
5 94 Johns Hopkins University (7) (70)
6 75 Stanford University (5) (85)
7 67 University of Michigan (8) (63)
8 64 University of Wisconsin (6) (84)
9 58 University of Illinois (20) (39)
10 52 Columbia University (9) (61)
11 43 University of Minnesota (20) (39)
12 42 North Carolina State University (15) (44)
13 ** 41 Harvard University ** (18) (40)
** 41 University of Chicago ** (30) (27)
** 41 University of Florida ** (10) (59)
16 40 Cornell University (10) (59)
17 ** 39 Pennsylvania State University ** (12) (52)
** 39 University of Alabama ** (17) (42)
19 ** 37 Georgia Institute of Technology ** (16) (43)
** 37 State University of New York ** (23) (35)

Notes:

* The listed patent counts are preliminary counts which are subject to correction.

** Indicates a tie in the ranking among two or more U.S. universities.

Please Note:
Patent information presented reflects patent ownership at patent grant and does not include ownership changes that occur after the patent grant. Where more than one assignee (owner) exists, patents are attributed to the first-named assignee.

Identifying the patent activity of U.S. universities involves substantial effort because patent applications received from universities are not separately identified at the time of filing but must be determined by looking at the listed assignee names on the issuing patents. While every effort is made to accurately identify all U.S. university entities and to report data by a single university name, achievement of a totally clean record is not expected, particularly in view of the many variations that occur in organizational identifications.

This listing of U.S. universities and their patent activity is made possible through work at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Each year, USPTO produces a set of statistical reports for NSF that profiles the patenting activity of U.S. universities. The report, "U.S. Colleges and Universities, Utility Patent Grants, Calendar Years 1969-2004", will profile U.S. university patent activity through calendar year 2004 and is expected to be completed in December of 2005. Since USPTO has not yet compiled the calendar year patent activity of U.S. universities for the 2004 NSF report, the above list of the top patenting universities for 2004 should be viewed as preliminary.

Contact Information -

Questions regarding these reports should be directed to:

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Electronic Information Products Division - PTMB
MDW 4C18, P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, VA 22313-1450

tel: (571) 272-5600
FAX: (571) 273-0110
e-mail:oeip@uspto.gov

address of PTMB pages at the USPTO Web Site: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/tafp.html
ftp download of selected PTMB reports and materials from : ftp.uspto.gov/pub/taf/

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