The number of inventors per patent has been steadily increasing over the past forty years. Patents issued during the past six months, have an average of 2.7 inventors per patent. In all, 68% of these patents list multiple inventors with 13% listing five or more inventors. Prior to 1990, most patents listed only one inventor.
I wanted to look at cross-border or transnational inventing. To do that, I pulled-up all patents that listed inventors from two or more separate nations. For this, I used the inventor's country of residence that is typically supplied when a patent application is filed. Patents with a US inventor (US patents) had an 8% rate of including a cross-border inventor. For US patents, Germany was the most likely country of residence for collaborators. Of the top-10 patenting countries, Japan had the lowest rate of cross-border inventorship at 3% while 48% of Swiss patents listed a non-Swiss inventor. The table below provides more comparative values.
|
Inventor Country |
Percent that Included Cross-Border Inventor |
Most Likely Country of Co-Inventor |
|
US |
8% |
Germany |
|
Japan |
3% |
US |
|
Germany |
20% |
US |
|
Korea |
4% |
US |
|
Taiwan |
10% |
China |
|
Canada |
26% |
US |
|
Great Britain |
36% |
US |
|
France |
26% |
US |
|
China |
38% |
US |
|
Switzerland |
48% |
Germany |
|
Italy |
22% |
US |
|
Israel |
23% |
US |
|
Netherlands |
33% |
US |
|
Australia |
19% |
US |
[Updated] Assignees with the most cross-border patents include IBM, Microsoft, Hong Fu Jin Precision Industry (Shenzhen), Intel, Cisco, GE, Schlumberger, Nokia, HP, ExxonMobile, Novartis, and Infineon. Several readers e-mailed and correctly noted that continental European cross-border co-inventorship should be expected because many Europeans cross a border for their jobs. Apparently, Novartis' main building is in Basel Switzerland, but is so close to the border that one Novartis parking lot is actually in France. University of California has a large number of US-China co-invented patents that likely arise from Chinese graduate students seeking their PhD in the US.
Note on the data: The table above includes a classification for "inventor country." The "inventor countries" of a patent include all countries that are designated as the country of residence for at least one of the inventors. Thus, a single patent may be classified as both a US patent and a German patent if there were inventors from each nation. The inventors submit their country of residence as part of the patent application process. The country of residence may be different from the nationality or correspondence address.
Note on spelling: I injured my shoulder this past week and will now be typing with one hand for a while.