The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is an organization, based in Florida, comprising 260 universities, government agencies, and research institutes. Since 2013 it has published a list of the top 100 international universities that were granted utility patents during the calendar year. Data is provided by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

This year’s list shows the rapid growth of the innovative capacity of universities in the Middle East and East Asia. The top university is King Faisal University, in Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern universities include King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, King Saud University, and Technion – the Israel Institute of Technology.

Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean Universities are well represented with Zhejiang University in fourth place, the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in tenth, and Osaka university in thirty-third.

Meanwhile, the University of California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas, are all in the top ten.

The top five universities, with the number of patents, are:

1. King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, 631
2. University of California, USA, 540
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, 295
4. Zhejiang University, China, 266
5. King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia, 265.

Source

National Academy of Inventors