State of Innovation

The number of patents issued to Colorado inventors has been stagnant since 1998. 

The number of patents grew steadily from 1991 to 1998.  Since 2004 the number of patents issued to Colorado inventors has declined significantly.  This trend is fairly consistent with the national trends.  For More information on national trends click here.

 Colorado ranks 16^th in the number of patents received, while Colorado is 22^nd in population.  This shows that Colorado is more innovative than most states.  The chart below show the top sixteen states in patents received in 2008.  The chart shows the percentage of U.S. patents received by each state and the population per patents.  Colorado receives one patent for about three thousand residents.  This places us behind a number of other high technology states.

 State    Patents             % of Total        % of US Pop.   Pop/patent 

CA       19181              24.75               11.95               1916

TX       6308                8.14                7.81                3856

NY      5828                7.52                6.31                3344

MA      3516                4.54                2.11                1848

WA      3286                4.24                2.11                1993

NJ        3171                4.09                2.84                2738

MI       3141                4.05                3.29                3184

MN      2957                3.82                1.70                1765

RI        2842                3.67                0.35                370

IL         2741                3.54                4.20                4707

OH      2630                3.39                3.75                4367

OR       2060                2.66                1.23                1840

FL        2046                2.64                5.97                8958

NC      1974                2.55                3.08                4672

WI       1688                2.18                1.83                3334

CO      1622                2.09                1.59                3045

 Innovation is key to Colorado’s long term economic growth. The decline in the number of patents issued to Colorado residents suggests that innovation has declined in Colorado.  A major cause for the decline in the number of patents is the weakening of our patent laws.  Colorado economic future is tied to a strong patent system and we should demand our patent laws be strengthened.  For more information see Intellectual Property Socialism (http://hallingblog.com/2009/05/18/intellectual-property-socialism-part-iv-uspto-takes-aim-at-innventors/)