NTU Leads Taiwan by Ranking Top 100 in 2023 US Patent Rankings

On February 22, 2024, the US National Academy of Inventors (NAI) released its “Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted Utility Patents in 2023”. The leaders of this ranking are the University of California system, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Texas system. Granted 55 US utility patent, National Taiwan University (NTU) ranks 58th globally, not only leading Taiwan but also ahead of renowned institutions such as Kyoto University, HKUST, National University of Singapore, and the University of Oxford.

To support patent applications, NTU engages faculty inventors, IP service providers, and technical experts to evaluate each invention’s licensing feasibility and potential. NTU selects promising inventions to receive funding. Over the past five years, NTU has filed an average of more than 200 patent applications annually from both domestically and abroad. In 2023 alone, NTU was granted 150 patents worldwide, including 55 from the US and jurisdictions such as Taiwan and Japan. These patents span across fields such as information and communication technologies (60), functional materials and chemistry (50), and biomedicine, agriculture, and health (40). Over 16% of NTU’s full-time faculty have obtained invention patents. To date, the university holds more than 2,400 valid patents, the majority of which from Taiwan and the US.

In a knowledge-based economy, universities bear a critical responsibility of driving innovation and translating research into industrial applications, and NTU is committed to such causes, accelerating technology diffusion and enhancing technology transfer and matchmaking. Through the NTU Technology Licensing Platform, the university compiles its R&D achievements and technology patents, enabling industry partners to quickly search innovations by category. NTU also holds thematic industry networking events and participates in trade shows to increase visibility and promote technology licensing and sales, offering tailored solutions for R&D and commercialization to support industrial growth.

NTU’s technology transfer revenues have repeatedly reached new heights in the recent five years. Before 2020, annual revenues were under NT$100 million, but in recent years, they have exceeded NT$200 million per year. On average, NTU transfers over 200 technologies to industry annually, with cumulative licensing income totaling approximately NT$870 million over the past five years, unleashing business opportunities through the commercialization of university research. Aside from financial success, NTU has also played its role in shouldering social responsibility. An example was when China abruptly prohibited the import of Taiwanese sugar apples in 2021, NTU license the long-distance sugar apple storage techniques to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) free of charge. That initiative, alongside the international marketing efforts by MOA to identify quality producers, fund transportation, and offer incentives, helped shipping domestic fruits to alternative markets in remote regions.

Furthermore, NTU encourages its inventors to commercialize their innovations through startups. To date, the university has supported the establishment of 34 spin-off companies, which have collectively raised over NT$1.9 billion in funding. NTU faculty also collaborate closely with industry, undertaking over 600 industry-academia projects annually. More than one-third of NTU faculty are involved in such partnerships. In the past five years alone, NTU has accumulated NT$4.6 billion in industry-academia collaboration funding. This figure has doubled from under NT$600 million annually before 2020 to about NT$1.2 billion per year in recent years.

With its Innovation and Incubation Center, NTU integrate extensive resources to provide a supportive environment for startups and SMES in technology, bio-pharmaceuticals, and others. By helping them connect to NTU’s rich R&D resources and offering them assistance in operation, management, fundraising, tax/legal compliance, and business exit, the Center has offered over 5,000 consultation sessions and has supported over 240 SMEs, 220 of which have completed incubation and graduated, including 7 companies that have successfully gone through IPOs.

Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted US Utility Patents:
https://academyofinventors.org/top-100-worldwide-universities/
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