Having a college roommate from Minnesota showed me first-hand that Minnesotans have an inventive and innovative spirit. That's why I was not surprised when I read a recent report by the Brookings Institution which listed Rochester third and the Twin Cities ninth among 358 major metropolitan areas in terms of patents produced annually. San Jose, California and Burlington, Vermont took the top two spots in the report.
According to the USPTO, Minnesota claimed 3.5 percent
of U.S. patents in 2011, but Minnesota has long been a state full of overachievers. The many med-tech giants that call Minnesota home have kept it on the forefront of innovation and made it the mother of what many researchers term "disruptive technology." Minnesota's top patent acquiring companies are IBM and 3M, but the exact answer as to why one state may churn out more patents than another is hard to pin down, because there are many factors to consider. For spots like the Twin Cities, Rochester and Burlington... well...maybe it's simply too cold in the winter months, so time indoors leads to some amazing thinking! Whatever the reason, I certainly look forward to meeting future students from our North Star State!
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