Geography Matters for Funding of the Creation of IP? The Most Inventive States and the Most Entrepreneurial States.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Bureau of Business Research has published the 2011 rankings (here and here) for the most inventive states in the United States as well as rankings for the most entrepreneurial states. CNN recently reported on the inventiveness rankings (here) and the CNN article includes some interesting information about the drivers of patenting in each state.

The most inventive states are ranked by number of patents per thousand people. The leading state? Not California, but Vermont—the home of a large IBM plant as well as the University of Vermont. Vermont has a whopping 3.51 patents per thousand people. Vermont also likely benefits from its proximity to Massachusetts, the 2^nd ranked state, which is home to Harvard University and MIT. Other highly ranked states close to Massachusetts include New Hampshire (8^th) and Connecticut (9^th). Delaware (10^th) is home to DuPont. California, the home of Stanford, Cal Tech and the University of California system, is 3^rdand the nearby top ten states include Washington (5^th) and Oregon (7^th). Notably, Washington boasts the patentee Microsoft. The states that are perhaps not as close to Massachusetts and California that rank in the top 10 are Minnesota (4^th) and Idaho (6^th). Minnesota hosts 3M and Idaho is home to Micron Technology. States that have well known technology sectors that are not in the top 10 are Texas (21^st) and North Carolina (22^nd). The states at the bottom are Alaska (50^th), Mississippi (49^th) and West Virginia (48^th).

The State Entrepreneurship Index ranks states by the following factors: “Percent growth in employer establishments; Percent growth in employer establishments per person; Business formation rate (i.e, establishment births per person); Patents per thousand persons; Average income per non-farm proprietor.” The top ten entrepreneurship states are: 1. Massachusetts; 2. North Dakota; 3. California; 4. New York; 5. Minnesota; 6. Oregon; 7. New Jersey; 8. Texas; 9. Illinois; 10. New Hampshire. The states at the bottom are Louisiana (50^th), Michigan (49^th) and South Carolina (48^th).