Tufts University and the patent race: what the new Top 100 rankings reveal about turning lab work into daily life
In a university lab, the moment an idea leaves a notebook and becomes something protectable can feel quiet: a form submitted, a disclosure reviewed, a signature added. Yet that administrative step sits at the center of a national competition that now frames how innovation is measured. Tufts University enters this conversation as the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) spotlights which institutions are granted the most U. S. utility patents—and why those patents are treated as a bridge between research and everyday life.
What is the Top 100 U. S. Universities Granted Utility Patents ranking—and why does it matter?
The Top 100 U. S. Universities list is published annually by the National Academy of Inventors and compiled using calendar-year patent data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The ranking emphasizes the “critical step” of protecting intellectual property through patents—because a strong patent portfolio is designed to help researchers translate inventions into the marketplace, bolster the economy, and create societal solutions.
In the 2025 edition referenced by the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame earned a place on the Top 100 U. S. Universities Granted Utility Patents list for the third straight year. The NAI also offers a global Top 100 Worldwide Universities list, published since 2013, and introduced the Top 100 U. S. Universities list in 2023 for a more focused view of national innovation.
How do patents move from campus research into the economy?
In this year’s ranking conversation, the University of California sits at No. 1 in the U. S. list released on March 19 (ET), described as a National Academy of Inventors ranking of U. S. schools granted the most U. S. utility patents by the USPTO. The University of California is also described as No. 1 in the world by the NAI, and it produces nearly twice as many patents as the second-place university in the U. S. The same account states UC generates more patents than government agencies and nonprofits, including the Department of Energy, and holds rights to over 6, 800 active patents from the USPTO.
Behind those totals is a policy shift that changed how research becomes commerce. The University of California’s statement points to the bipartisan Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which allowed universities, small businesses, and nonprofits to own inventions from federally funded research and license new technology to companies. It also incentivized universities to invest a share of licensing revenue back into innovation and commercialization—creating both incentive and means for inventors to bring work to market.
The scale of that shift appears in a comparison included in the same material: before Bayh-Dole, federal agencies had licensed 1, 400 inventions to companies; by 2024, U. S. universities licensed 9, 500 inventions to industry in a single year.
Economic stakes are spelled out in figures attributed to The Association of University Technology Managers: university patents generated $1. 9 trillion in economic output, created 6. 5 million U. S. jobs, and launched more than 19, 000 startups from 1996 to 2020. For institutions watching rankings, that is the subtext—patents are not just paper protections but signals of potential downstream impact.
For Tufts University, the same national framework raises a practical question that faculty inventors, technology transfer staff, and students ask in different ways: what happens after discovery, and how much of that journey is shaped by whether an institution can protect and license what it creates?
Which inventions are universities patenting—and who helps translate them?
The Notre Dame example offers a window into what “translation” can look like. Patents awarded to Notre Dame over the past year included new printable electronics and biosensing devices; highly specific insecticides; new methods for cancer drug development, single-cell capture, and nanoparticle assembly; new systems to enable fast flight; novel dyes for bioimaging; and new technologies for making wireless communication more secure and more energy-efficient.
Karen Deak, executive director of the University of Notre Dame’s IDEA Center, described what it takes to appear among top patent grantees: “Securing a place among top patent grantees requires a robust research and innovation ecosystem, one which we have cultivated here at the University, ” Deak said. “We’re proud to empower our researchers to translate their discoveries into impact, and ensure that Notre Dame’s research does not merely exist in the lab, but is positioned to drive economic growth and improve lives through commercialization. ”
Paul R. Sanberg, president of the National Academy of Inventors, put the ranking in national terms: “These universities and their inventive faculty are at the forefront of driving national innovation and competitiveness, ” Sanberg said. “By moving their ideas to market and protecting their IP with patents, these institutions are ensuring that the U. S. not only remains competitive on the global stage, but directly shapes the future of innovation. ”
The NAI’s structure of recognition also matters for the people doing the work. In addition to institutional rankings, it recognizes individual academic inventors through fellow and senior member programs. Notre Dame listed faculty elected as NAI fellows: Nosang Myung, Bernard Keating-Crawford Professor of Engineering and faculty director of Analytical Science and Engineering at Notre Dame (ASEND) core facility and the Materials Characterization Facility; Edward Maginn, Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Engineering and associate vice president for research; Ashley Thrall, Myron and Rosemary Noble Collegiate Professor of Structural Engineering; Hsueh-Chia Chang, Bayer Corporation Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; and Gary Bernstein, Frank M. Freimann Professor of Electrical Engineering. Notre Dame also listed senior members: Jonathan Chisum, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering; Patrick Fay, Stinson Professor of Nanotechnology; and Tom O’Sullivan, Frank M. Freimann Collegiate Professor of Biomedical Electronics.
Those names illustrate a basic reality: patents often follow teams, facilities, and years of specialized work. For Tufts University, the point is not imitation of any single campus model, but the recognition that in a patent-driven metric, universities are judged not only by discovery but by whether they build the systems that shepherd discovery into protected, licensable form.
What responses are universities making as the patent rankings sharpen?
The University of California’s framing ties patents to competitiveness and access to innovations in health, technology, and more. Notre Dame’s framing ties patent strength to an ecosystem designed to move inventions beyond the lab. Together, they suggest the response universities are choosing: invest in mechanisms that protect intellectual property, support commercialization, and reward inventors with institutional pathways that make patenting and licensing possible.
In this landscape, Tufts University is part of a national story shaped by the USPTO’s patent counts and the NAI’s annual lists—where the question is no longer only whether discovery happens, but how effectively institutions convert discovery into protected inventions that can travel outward, into companies, products, and services.
Image caption (alt text): A researcher reviews patent paperwork on a lab bench as Tufts University joins the national conversation on utility patents and commercialization.
