The FedInvent™ Count
The Count of Patents Funded by the National Institutes of Health in 2024
This page was updated on Monday, February 3, 2025
In 2024:
- The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted 373,860 patents in 2024.
- 6,890 patents showed that the inventors benefitted from American taxpayer funding.
- These taxpayer-funded patents accounted for 1.84% of all US patents granted in 2024.
- Inventors cited Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contracts or grants as the funding source on 2,626 patents. (38%)
- Of those 2,626 HHS patents, 2,572 patents (98%) cite the National Institutes of Health as the funding source.
- These patents contain 3,253 individual NIH grant or contract citations
- 2,362 HHS patents (89%) of taxpayer-funded patents were funded solely by HHS.
- The patents that cite HHS and other departments include:
- National Science Foundation (NSF) — 161
- Department of Defense (DOD) — 147
- Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) — 35
- Department of Energy (DOE) — 29
- US Department of Agriculture (USDA) — 6
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — 5
- Department of Commerce (DOC) — 3:
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) — 2
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — 1
- Department of Education (ED) — 1
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — 1
- 2,230 (87%) of NIH patents were funded by a single department.
- 1795 (70%) of NIH patents were funded by HHS, a single department, and a single institute at NIH.
- Of all of the patents that cite NIH as a funding source, 2065 (80%) cite funding from a single NIH institute.
- 112 NIH funded patents are classified as intramural patents because they have one or more inventors who are federal employees.
The Numbers
The table below shows the numbers by Institute. Definitions of the columns appear at the bottom of the table.
| INSTITUTE | INSTITUTE CITATIONS |
SINGLE INSTITUTE |
% | MULTI INSTITUTE |
% | INTRAMURAL PATENTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Cancer Institute (NCI) | 639 | 453 | 70.9% | 186 | 29.1% | 45 |
| National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) | 397 | 281 | 70.8% | 116 | 29.2% | 33 |
| National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) | 362 | 215 | 59.4% | 147 | 40.6% | 0 |
| National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) | 331 | 224 | 67.7% | 107 | 32.3% | 6 |
| National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) | 249 | 143 | 57.4% | 106 | 42.6% | 2 |
| National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) | 219 | 125 | 57.1% | 94 | 42.9% | 2 |
| National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) | 202 | 127 | 62.9% | 75 | 37.1% | 2 |
| National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) | 101 | 59 | 58.4% | 42 | 41.6% | 2 |
| National Institute on Aging (NIA) | 85 | 52 | 61.2% | 33 | 38.8% | 3 |
| National Eye Institute (NEI) | 71 | 53 | 74.6% | 18 | 25.4% | 3 |
| National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) | 81 | 43 | 53.1% | 38 | 46.9% | 1 |
| National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) | 76 | 36 | 47.4% | 40 | 52.6% | 4 |
| National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) | 73 | 45 | 61.6% | 28 | 38.4% | 1 |
| National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) | 71 | 40 | 56.3% | 31 | 43.7% | 4 |
| NIH Office of the Director (NIHOD) | 63 | 36 | 57.1% | 27 | 42.9% | 0 |
| National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) | 49 | 26 | 53.1% | 23 | 46.9% | 0 |
| National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) | 45 | 27 | 60.0% | 18 | 40.0% | 2 |
| National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) | 36 | 9 | 25.0% | 27 | 75.0% | 0 |
| National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) | 34 | 29 | 85.3% | 5 | 14.7% | 0 |
| National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) | 26 | 17 | 65.4% | 9 | 34.6% | 1 |
| National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) | 17 | 6 | 35.3% | 11 | 64.7% | 0 |
| National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) | 14 | 7 | 50.0% | 7 | 50.0% | 1 |
| National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) | 7 | 4 | 57.1% | 3 | 42.9% | 0 |
| National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) | 3 | 3 | 100.0% | 0 | 0.0% | 0 |
| Fogarty International Center (FIC) | 2 | 1 | 50.0% | 1 | 50.0% | 0 |
| TOTALS | 3253 | 2061 | 63.4% | 1192 | 36.6% | 112 |
Definitions
- Citation — An NIH grant or contract number in the government interest statement or the institute where at least one NIH scientist or researcher works.
- Single Institute — Patents that cite a single institute as the source of taxpayer-funding. Scofflaws, entities that cite work done with NIH but don't provide contract or grant numbers are classified as a Single Institute patent.
- Multi-Institute — Paatents that cite more than one NIH institute as the source of taxpayer funding.