Patently Best
When it comes to the impact on industry of its accumulated patents, Rice University has proved itself pretty inventive. According to the Patent Board, a Chicago firm that ranks companies for the prowess of their properties, Rice is No. 1 among research universities in “Industry Impact.”
“Rice researchers work at the cutting edge of their fields, so it’s not surprising that their discoveries are having a large impact on technological innovation,” said Vice Provost for Research James Coleman. “The Patent Board’s analysis confirms that impression.”
The company gathered and analyzed references to universities and their patents in data from government and industry sources to quantify how influential a company’s patent portfolio is on the development of technologies in other companies, compared to the rest of the industry.
The Patent Board noted that while Rice has “the lowest volume of patents, they are influential, which is not surprising considering the majority are nanotechnology related.” It specifically cited research into optically activated nanoshells being used in human cancer trials by Houston’s Nanospectra Biosciences Inc., a company founded on Rice technology.
“Rice has only been doing the patent game really seriously for the last decade,” said Wade Adams, director of Rice University’s Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, “and this recognition is a real testimony to the inventiveness of the nanotechnology faculty and students here at Rice. It also demonstrates the aggressiveness of the university’s Office of Technology Transfer in getting patents issued and doing it in a way that they’re rated the most powerful of all the portfolios. That’s a fantastic achievement.”