FIU ranked among top 50 U.S. patent producers in the world

FIU ranks among the top 20 U.S. public universities in the world for the number of U.S. utility patents produced.

FIU was awarded 60 patents in 2020, spanning the fields of engineering, computer information sciences, public health, chemistry, medicine, genetics, biology, psychology, and physics.

The “Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents in 2020” report was compiled by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association. The report uses data obtained from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and highlights the vital role patents play in university research and innovation.

FIU was ranked No. 20 among public universities, No. 34 among all U.S. universities, and No. 42 among all universities in the world.

Many of recent patents awarded to FIU scholars push technological boundaries and provide solutions to critical problems. These patents include a device designed by Anuradha Godavarty, professor of biomedical engineering, and her team that helps doctors quickly and non-invasively diagnose diabetic ulcers under the skin; a lithium-oxygen battery that powers electric vehicles more efficiently, developed by Bilal El Zehab and Meer Safa of the College of Engineering and Computing and their team; and a novel RNA therapy that helps doctors treat lung disease on a molecular level, patented by Professors Hitendra Chand and Madhavan Nair of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and their team.

There are many more patents in the pipeline. Fiscal year 2020-2021 was a record period for intellectual property disclosures (the first step to a patent application) for FIU. Researchers and inventors submitted 107 disclosures.

FIU is represented in the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), an organization comprised of U.S. and international universities, as well as governmental and non-profit research institutions. The academy includes over 4,000 individual inventor members and fellows from more than 250 institutions.

Nine members of the FIU community over the years have been elected as NAI Fellows. Election to NAI Fellow is the highest distinction in the NAI. The FIU NAI Fellows are:

• Shekhar Bhansali, professor of electrical and computer engineering, College of Engineering and Computing;
• Kenneth G. Furton, provost and executive vice president;
• S. S. Iyengar, Distinguished Professor of the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences, College of Engineering and Computing;
• Ranu Jung, Wallace H Coulter Eminent Scholar, professor and chair of biomedical engineering, College of Engineering and Computing;
• William Murphy, entrepreneur in residence, College of Engineering and Computing;
• Madhavan P. Nair, Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Immunology and NanoMedicine, director of the Institute of NeuroImmune Pharmacology, and associate dean of bio-medical research, Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine;
• Naphtali Rishe, professor of the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences, College of Engineering and Computing;
• John L. Volakis, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and dean of the College of Engineering and Computing;
• Sakhrat Khizroev, Professor Emeritus of electrical and computer engineering.

“As a top-tier research university, our FIU scholars are dedicated to pioneering research that can be used to solve societal challenges,” said Andres Gil, FIU senior vice president for Research and Economic Development. “These innovations demonstrate our commitment to innovating meaningful solutions that benefit our local and global communities.”