The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) released their list of the top 100 universities and research organizations worldwide receiving U. S. patents in 2015. The rankings recognize academic institutions and their academic inventors as the nation’s major generators of new technologies that have received U. S. patents. The University of New Mexico is tied for 47th among the top 100 for number of issued patents received in 2015 for its inventions.
The NAI and IPO have published the list annually since 2013. The rankings use data from the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and are compiled by calculating the number of utility patents granted by the USPTO that lists a university as the first assignee on the printed patent.
“This is the third year in a row UNM has placed in the top 100. Our rankings were 56 in 2013, 42 in 2015, and 46 in 2016, placing us in the top 50 in the world within the past two years. The recognition by NAI and IPO confirms UNM’s reputation as a place that promotes and supports innovation,” said Lisa Kuuttila, CEO & Chief Economic Development Officer of STC.UNM.
That's actually the Top 50!
STC.UNM is responsible for filing patents on UNM’s technologies so that they can be licensed by companies and form the basis of new companies. Patents protect the intellectual property rights of all inventors and are what drive innovation and investment, which contribute greatly to economic development.
STC.UNM (STC) connects the business community (companies, entrepreneurs and investors) to UNM technologies for licensing opportunities and the creation of start-up companies.
The National Academy of Inventors® is a rapidly growing 501(c)(3) non-profit member organization comprising U.S. and international universities, and governmental and non-profit research institutes, with over 3,000 individual inventor members and Fellows spanning more than 200 institutions.
The Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), established in 1972, is a trade association for owners of patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. IPO is the only association in the U.S. that serves all intellectual property owners in all industries and all fields of technology.
The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) also recently ranked UNM among top research universities worldwide. UNM was ranked by CWUR as No. 196 of 1,000 universities out of more than 25,000 universities worldwide. The top indicators for UNM were in the areas of citations (No. 90) and patents (no. 119). When compared against U.S. institutions directly, UNM was ranked No. 82.
Research conducted by faculty members at UNM's Center for High Technology Materials (CHTM) accounts for about 35% of the STC.UNM portfolio of issued US patents. The US patent count for CHTM faculty is up to 179. The cumulative h-Index for citations of papers and patents by CHTM faculty is 90. (The h-index is a number intended to measure both the productivity and the impact of published work.) CHTM plays a key role in UNM's worldwide leadership as a research university.