Recently, the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), in conjunction with the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO), has announced the Top 100 Worldwide Universities granted U.S. Utility Patents in 2014.

The NAI and IPO published the report each year since 2013 by calculating the number of utility patents that list a university as the first assignee on the printed patent granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, aiming to highlight the important role patents play in university research and innovation.

The top 15 universities worldwide include: The University of California System, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tsinghua University(China), Stanford University, University of Texas, California Institute of Technology, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, University of Michigan, National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan), Korea Institute of Science Technology, University of South Florida, University of Pennsylvania, and the Institute of Microelectronics of Chinese Academy of Science.

From above, we can see that although the U.S. universities occupy the most of the positions in the top 15 list, two Chinese universities (institutes) stand out and take the 3rd and the 15th position respectively. With China's policy of prompting innovation spreading to every corner of the country, more and more patents will be filed by Chinese entities, not only in China but also in other jurisdictions. The universities, being one of the most important roles of innovation, will naturally play a part in it. We are expecting that the innovation will finally transform to actual power and prompt the economy and welfare of the country.