Today, the San Jose Mercury News published an article Silicon Valley is the nation's top dog for innovation that uses US patents to measure innovation leadership. As Mr. Steve Lohr states in NY Times Patent Producers Clustered in Only a Few Cities: "Patents, for all their flaws, are a widely used proxy for innovation."
The Brookings Institution Report below discussed in the Mercury News states that Silicon Valley (i.e., Santa Clara County) received more US patents than any other metropolitan area in the United States in 2012. Mr. Rothwell, an author of the Brookings report stated: "The Bay Area is extremely strong in every measure of innovation and in many industries" such as those relating to computers, electronics manufacturing, data processing, software, telecommunications, and web hosting.
The Mercury News says No. 1 Silicon Valley received 12.57 patents per 1,000 employees, The No. 2 metropolitian area centering on Corvallis, Oregon, had 5.27 patents per 1,000 employees. No. 4 Santa Cruz County had 4.24 per 1,000 employees, and No. 6 San Francisco East Bay had 3.96 per 1,000 employees. Silicon Valley has been on top for US patents grants every year since 1988.
Thanks to Mr. Alan Cooper for passing along Mr. Lohr's NY Times article, which had a link to a PDF copy of Brookings Institution Report by Jonathan Rothwell, Jose Lobo, Deborah Strumsky, and Mark Muro's Patenting Prosperity: Invention and Economic Performance in the United States and its Metropolitan Areas.
Copyright © 2013 Robert Moll. All rights reserved.
