In his 50-year career, Ovshinsky received more than 400 patents in the U.S. and more than 800 foreign patents covering a range of technologies, including nickel-metal hydride batteries, rewritable CDs, DVD optical discs, flat-screen liquid crystal displays, hydrogen fuel cells, thin-film solar cells and others.
FORBES: Stanford Ovshinsky, Battery Genius Behind Smartphones And Hybrids, Dies At 89
InterDigital, as it happens, is a technology company that specializes in patent licensing: the company notes on its Web site that it has 8, 800 U.S. and foreign issued patents and almost 10, 000 pending applications, almost all related to wireless communications.
Once they graduate, U.S. educated foreign students are awarded patents at a significantly higher rate than U.S.-born workers.
FORBES: Four Easy Ways For Republicans To Attract Immigrant Voters
Patents by foreign-born employees play an important role in startup companies.
Having monitored the number of utility patents (an inexact but objective measure for innovation) granted by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office to countries during this period, it was fascinating to observe that the number of patents of foreign origin over taking those from the U.S. in 2007 for the first time in history.
FORBES: The locus of innovation has shifted away from the U.S.
In this increasingly important domain, the Partnership study found that 84 percent of patents had a foreign-born inventor.
Foreign patent applications cite Chinese patents in authority.
The effect is quite substantial: a one-percentage-point increase in the number of foreign-born college graduates increased patents per capita by 9 to 18 percent.
FORBES: Want To Reduce Income Inequality? Lower The Barriers To Talented Immigrants
Then, as health minister he took on two big foreign drugmakers, threatening to break the patents on their HIV drugs and getting them to cut their prices.
In 2010, U.S.-based companies recaptured the lead for the total number of U.S. patents granted after falling behind foreign companies for the previous two years, according to rankings released yesterday by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, a division of Fairview Research, of global companies awarded the most U.S. patents in 2010.
FORBES: U.S. Reclaims Top Spot in Global Innovation Rankings
After Brazil agreed to recognise their patents, in 1996, many foreign drug firms set up manufacturing plants.
Foreign producers argue India is discouraging innovation by weakening patents, reducing the incentive for big companies to invest time and money to discover drugs.
What happens in America is important because the USPTO approves more than 170, 000 patents each year, half of them to foreign applicants.
In a recent study, the Partnership for a New American Economy, a bipartisan coalition of more than 450 mayors and business leaders, found that in 2011, foreign-born inventors were behind 76 percent of all patents awarded to the 10 most productive U.S. research universities.
What happens in America matters globally, since it is the world's leading patent office, approving about 170, 000 patents each year, half of which are granted to foreign applicants.
The GSM selection ushered into China foreign network equipment and mobile phone vendors (Ericsson and Nokia, by holding important GSM patents, occupied an advantageous position for GSM network and handset development, which left Chinese firms in catch-up mode).
Meanwhile, in the equally critical healthcare sector, 79 percent of patents for pharmaceutical drugs or drug compounds were invented or co-invented by someone foreign-born.
应用推荐