Fourth of July Special – American Patents

Following the airing of an American gut-check in Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, Slate published a list of American number ones. Patenting was on that list – the USPTO is the busiest patent office in the world.  From WIPO stats, in 2010, just under 500,000 applications were filed in the US, with 391,000 in China, 345,000 in Japan, and 151,000 in the European Union. As far as patents, the US granted 219,000, China granted 135,000, Japan granted 222,000, and the EPO granted 58,000.