I saw an eye-popping number today, thanks to the Innovation Daily blog. It dealt with the number of patents awarded across the United States in 2012.
There were 134,187 patents awarded in the U.S. last year, according to the State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI), which published a state-by-state list. But that wasn’t the number that caught my eye.
Oklahoma had 521 patents issued in 2012. But that wasn’t the number that caused me to do a double-take.
No, the eye-popping number was the number of patents issued in California last year: 34,659. That’s more than triple the 8,929 patents issued in No. 2 Texas.
Think about it. More than 25 percent of all patents issued in the United States last year were issued in California.
I shared that number with the office wiseacre, who sarcastically said that “probably 30,000 of those were issued to Apple.”
For the record, here are the top 10 states for the number of patents issued in 2012:
| 1. California | 34,659 |
| 2. Texas | 8,929 |
| 3. New York | 8,557 |
| 4. Massachusetts | 6,119 |
| 5. Washington | 5,985 |
| 6. Illinois | 5,078 |
| 7. Michigan | 4,997 |
| 8. New Jersey | 4,656 |
| 9. Florida | 4,453 |
| 10. Minnesota | 4,278 |
