San Jose ranked as the #1 most innovative metro in the US

San Jose and the San Jose metro (the true definition of Silicon Valley) have become synonymous with innovation. One of the ways we can gauge this is by the number of patents filed in each region. In this metric, San Jose completely crushes any other metro in the US with 9,798 patents filed last year. NYC came in second with 6,275 patents and San Francisco got the bronze with 4,919 patents. That is already extremely impressive. But that's not the whole story...

The San Jose metro has a population of 2 million people. NYC, the runner up, has a population of almost 20 million people (!!!). So despite having 10% of the population, San Jose still filed more patents than an area more populous than most States. Even when you look at our neighbors up North, the SF Metro includes Oakland and Alameda County and has a total population of 4.6 million. So again, despite being less than half the size we filed double the patents as the SF metro. This is a key reason why the US Patent Office decided to open a satellite location in San Jose, not San Francisco.

Make no mistake, we are still the innovation capital of the world by far.

Top 25 Most Innovative US Metros (Patents Filed)

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA (9,798)

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA (6,275)

San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA (4,919)

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (3,773)

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA (2,091)

Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH (1,798)

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, VA (1,489)

San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA (1,190)

Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI (896)

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Alpharetta, GA (812)

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI (770)

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL (761)

Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, TX (626)

Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE (532)

Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX (499)

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (453)

Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC (404)

Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN (321)

Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY (315)

Raleigh-Cary, NC (289)

Bloomington, IL (282)

Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO (265)

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA (238)

Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT (235)

Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ (185)

Source: Bay Area Inno

Irish Innovation Center Grand Opening Photos

St. Patty's Day Post: Irish Innovation Center Opens Downtown!

Last Sunday I was able to get into the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Irish Innovation Center located in Downtown San Jose. These offices will be a launching pad for Irish startup companies that want a presence in Silicon Valley. The event was a huge success with encouraging speeches from Brian Cowen (Prime Minister of Ireland), Chuck Reed, Sam Liccardo, Dr. Craig Barrett (former CEO of Intel), Tom McEnery, and Gordon Ciochon (Former Head of Global Operations at Symantec). We need to continue to keep the San Jose entrepreneurial community active and this is a giant step in the right direction. If we can center that entrepreneurial community in the middle of Downtown San Jose, then that's just icing on the cake.

I'll have some photos from the event for you soon, but for now I can offer you the shortest Sam Liccardo interview of all time courtesy of David Manzo: