Foreign Inventors Dominate Patents Awarded to Top Research Universities

The Business Review
June 27, 2012

More than 76 percent of the patents awarded to the nation’s top 10 research universities last year had a foreign-born scientist listed as an inventor.

That’s according to the Partnership for a New American Economy, which analyzed 1,500 patents awarded in 2011 to the top 10 patent-producing universities in the U.S. The organization, which is composed of mayors and business leaders, contends this finding demonstrates the need to reform our immigration policies to allow more of these foreign-born inventors to remain in the United States.

Many of these inventors may end up leaving the country under current policies. The study found that 54 percent of the patents studied included foreign-born inventors who were students, post-doctoral researchers or staff researchers who were not professors. These foreign researchers are the “most likely to face major hurdles obtaining the visas needed to settle permanently in the United States,” according to the partnership.

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