Number of Patents Granted by the USPTO in Rust Belt US States Shows General Trend of Decrease Since 2002
The above graph was generated from data available on the USPTO's website and shows that four Rust Belt States, Indiana (IN), Michigan (MI), Ohio (OH), and Pennsylvania (PA) showed a general trend of decrease in patent grants from the years 2002 to 2008. The trend of decrease shows sharp drops for three of the states (Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) in 2005, which is shortly after new USPTO quality initiative programs, such as the second pair of eyes program were initiated in fiscal year 2004. As I noted on this blog before, USPTO officials admitted that USPTO managers permitted patent applications reviewed under the second pair of eyes program to languish or become withdrawn from issue.
Senior USPTO managers from the Dudas Era have been quoted as suggesting that lowered allowance rates of patent applications reflect improved patent examination quality at the USPTO. I believe that the allowance rates of patents were lowered due to mismanagement, whereby patent applications reviewed under quality assurance programs were permitted to languish by some USPTO managers, were rejected due to misguided and extreme rejections, and were otherwise obstructed from prosecution and issue through so-called quality initiatives that did not facilitate better quality, but were thought to be instruments of cronyism and favoritism and abuse of merit principals.
The area of the United States known as the Rust Belt emerged as a primary center of manufacturing industries and includes parts of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The Rust Belt was hard hit by the US's latest recession.
The decline in manufacturing industries since 2000 has been attributed to the Rust Belt's economic decline. However, some academics, have linked the Rust Belt's decline to the area's number of patents-per capita rather than due to the loss of manufacturing industries. According to an article in the Toledo Blade entitled, "Ohio Economy Sputters as Innovation Declines", (click here to read the article) some academics have theorized that the story of the Rust Belt is not about vanishing jobs, but about a lack of innovation and therefore, a lack of ideas and industries that were never generated to supplant lost manufacturing industries.
According to the article, Federal Reserve Economists Paul Bauer and Mark Schweitzer determined that a state's patents- per-capita mattered significantly as an index of a state's economic health and these economists also determined that Ohio's reservoir of patents was the driver of its economy. Click here to see the two economists' study. The USPTO's data on its own website, www.uspto.gov, indicates that most US States experienced a decline in patent grants from 2004 to 2008. Click here to view the USPTO's data on patent grants for US States. I think the above graph is evidence of how the USPTO's mismanagement caused waste of innovation and contributed to economic decline in some of the most economically depressed states in the Union.
Posted by FederalWorker at 8/23/2009 4:14 PM 
Categories: Statistical Representations of USPTO Patent Activities
Tags: Second Pair of Eyes USPTO Innovation Patents
Categories: Statistical Representations of USPTO Patent Activities
Tags: Second Pair of Eyes USPTO Innovation Patents
Hey, that was interesting,
There seems to be alot of patents in 2006
Anyway, thanks for the post
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