Which States File the Most U.S. Patents — and Where Florida Stands

Patenting Activity Is Not Spread Evenly Across the Country

Where a company or inventor is based has a real effect on the patent landscape around it—concentrations of engineering talent, research universities, and venture capital tend to cluster in a relatively small number of states, and patent filings follow. California, Texas, and New York have anchored the top of that list for decades. Florida, with its large population, growing technology and life sciences sectors, and research universities, sits further down the list but has still built a meaningful and growing patent portfolio of its own. This post breaks down which states file and hold the most U.S. patents, where Florida fits into that picture, and which organizations are driving Florida's own patent activity.

The Top 20 States by Utility Patents:

USPTO Patent Technology Monitoring Team, CY2015 state-of-inventor utility patent grants

The USPTO's Patent Technology Monitoring Team once published an annual, fully granular breakdown of utility patents granted by the state of the first-named inventor. That dataset's last complete year is 2015, and it has not been refreshed at this level of state-by-state detail since. It remains useful because the states at the top of the list have not changed. More recent partial figures, compiled from USPTO data by R&D tax credit researchers, confirm the picture: California alone accounted for roughly 46,454 utility patent grants in FY2024 (down from about 47,314 in FY2021), Texas and New York each still produce several times what most other states do, and nationwide utility patent grants have declined modestly across most states over the same period. Florida did not appear among the states with the largest year-over-year swings in that more recent dataset, suggesting its output has stayed comparatively stable.

Florida's Own Patent Activity

Florida punches above a mid-pack ranking when the full picture is considered. Between 2017 and 2024, inventors residing in Florida were named on roughly 60,270 utility and design patent filings (excluding PCT applications) and an additional 9,537 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) international applications—a substantial and sustained body of filings for a state that, unlike California or Massachusetts, is not traditionally thought of as a technology hub first. Utility patents made up about 79% of that Florida-connected filing activity, with PCT filings at roughly 14% and design patents at about 7%.

Florida's research universities are a meaningful part of that output: the University of Florida Research Foundation, the University of South Florida, and the University of Central Florida Research Foundation together were associated with more than 3,238 patent filings over the same 2017-2024 period, and Florida State University was ranked No. 60 among U.S. universities for utility patents in the National Academy of Inventors' 2025 U.S. Universities ranking. Combined with a strong base of corporate and life-sciences filers, Florida's patent activity looks less like an afterthought and more like a genuine, if less publicized, innovation economy.

The Top Ten Florida-Linked Patent Owners

GreyB analysis of USPTO filing data, Florida-resident inventors, 2017–2024

The USPTO does not publish an official annual ranking of "top Florida patent owners," so this list reflects the best available aggregate analysis of patent applications naming at least one Florida-resident inventor over 2017–2024, the most recent multi-year window with public data of this kind. Being "Florida-linked" by inventor residence is different from being headquartered in Florida: Magic Leap (Plantation), Citrix Systems (historically Fort Lauderdale), Arthrex (Naples), and Universal City Studios' Orlando operations are Florida-based, while IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America, Siemens Energy, and Motorola are large multi-state or multinational companies whose Florida R&D or business units generate a meaningful share of Florida-inventor patents without the company itself being a Florida corporation. Both categories matter to Florida's innovation economy, but they answer slightly different questions, and it's worth being precise about which one is being asked.

A Growing Patent Presence Worth Protecting

Florida may not top the national patent rankings, but it is far from an afterthought—a deep bench of technology, life sciences, and defense-adjacent companies, paired with active research universities, gives the state real and growing patent activity. Whether you're a Florida-based company building a patent portfolio or an out-of-state business with Florida operations and inventors, understanding where you stand and how to protect what you're creating matters.

If you need help filing, managing, or enforcing a patent portfolio in Florida or nationally, contact Florida IP Attorney at RThornburg@AllenDyer.com.