University of California Leads Patent Race

If scores for patent awards to universities were like college football, there would be calls to break up the Golden Bears, the Bruins and the Banana Slugs.

For the 10th straight year, the University of California system received the most patents of any university in 2003, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A preliminary review says the university, which has 10 campuses and manages three national laboratories for the Department of Energy, received 439 patents last year. The California Institute of Technology came in second with 139 patents. MIT (127), the University of Texas (96), Stanford University (85) and the University of Wisconsin (84) rounded out the top six.

Among the inventions in biotechnology, electrical engineering, computer science and other fields is Patent No. 6,670,578, awarded Dec. 30, to Lloyd A. Hackel, John M. Halpin and Fritz B. Harris, for a technique called laser peening that reshapes and gives specific contours to a piece of metal while strengthening it.

Take that to the Rose Bowl.