12-05-2025
BYU leads in student inventor patents, recent study shows
PROVO, Utah () — Brigham Young University was recently ranked as one of the Top 100 universities in the U.S. for most-issued patents. What makes its ranking unique isn't just the number, but who holds the patents.
The ranking, by the National Academy of Inventors, finds that of BYU's 18 newly-issued patents, 10 of them list students as inventors or co-inventors.
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According to a BYU press release, published research shows that nationally only a small fraction of graduate students appear on a patent. For STEM Ph.D students, it's roughly 4%, including at R1 universities, or universities with a high level of research.
BYU Technology Transfer Director Dave Brown said the BYU ranking is 'very unusual…in a good way.'
'When more than half of our U.S. patents list a student alongside a professor, that's campus … turning into a launchpad for invention,' Brown said. 'BYU is building inventors who can serve the world by solving real-life challenges.'
As those patents are mixed with a large volume of faculty-only filings, the amount that is shared with a student inventor is usually in the 10-20% range, according to the AUTM licensing survey data and peer-reviewed studies. In comparison, BYU's share of patents with student inventors is 56%.
'BYU is in a very select group — fewer than a dozen U.S. institutions — where student inventors appear on a majority of issued patents,' Brown said. 'Making the NAI Top 100 ranking shows that BYU is succeeding at training the next generation.'
Among the new patents that BYU students hold are: artificial vertebral endplates, electromagnetic trap multiplexing, integrated cleaning devices for optical instruments, and multi-stage stent devices.
Among the BYU student co-inventors in the 2024 report, some of them are listed on multiple patents.
The NAI Top 100 U.S. Universities is released annually and ranks U.S. academic institutions that play a role in the advancement of innovation through patents. The NAI has published the top 100 worldwide university list since 2013, adding the top 100 U.S. universities list in 2023.
The University of California system tops the 2024 lists, with MIT, the University of Texas system, Purdue, and Stanford in the top 5. Local universities that made the rankings include the University of Utah, BYU, and Utah State University in that order.
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