UCs Best the Rest in Utility Patents
The University of California recently earned the distinction of having the highest number of utility patents granted in 2014, with UCSB contributing 59 of them in the U.S., and also 43 outside the United States. The National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association compiled the report, which was released yesterday, crediting the 10 UC campuses with 453 U.S. utility patents for discoveries made by its researchers in 2014.
Several of UCSB’s patents were connected to Nobel-winner Shuji Nakamura’s blue-light LED research. Among the many others were Samir Mitragotri’s lab’s peptide carriers that can deliver small molecules of therapeutic medications across the skin barrier, and the “artificial pancreas,” or a fully automated system to analyze the many variables of blood glucose and deliver insulin when needed, which came out of Frank Doyle’s lab.
In total, the UCs held 4,448 active U.S. patents, and UCSB claimed 593 active inventions in its portfolio, reported the university’s Public Affairs office. Massachusetts Institute of Technology was next in the 2014 list with 275 utility patents, with Tsinghua University (230) and Stanford (182) in the third and fourth slots.
