Behind every patent is at least one inventor. Over the past five decades, inventing has become increasingly collaborative. Solo inventors have given way to larger teams, and the gender composition of the inventor workforce has slowly shifted. Shunpei Yamazaki holds the record for most patents granted to a single inventor.
Team Size Over Time
Average team size, solo-inventor share, and large-team (5+) share. Values share the same y-axis.
The shift from solo invention to team-based R&D is one of the defining trends of modern innovation, reflecting the increasing complexity of technology.
The average team size has grown from roughly 1.5 inventors per patent in the late 1970s to over 2.5 today. The share of solo-inventor patents has dropped considerably, while patents with five or more inventors have become more common -- reflecting the increasing complexity and interdisciplinarity of modern innovation.
Gender
Female Inventor Share Over Time
Percentage of inventor-patent instances attributed to female inventors.
The persistent gender gap in patenting reflects broader systemic barriers in STEM fields, from educational pipelines to workplace culture.
Progress on gender diversity in patenting has been real but slow. Despite decades of initiatives to broaden participation in STEM, the female share of inventors on US patents remains well below parity. At the current rate of change, achieving equal representation would take many more decades.
Top Inventors
Most Prolific Inventors
Inventors ranked by total utility patents granted, 1976-2025.
The concentration of patents among a small number of prolific inventors raises questions about whether the patent system rewards individual genius or institutional resources.
The most prolific inventors are overwhelmingly concentrated in electronics and semiconductor fields, where rapid design iteration and modular innovation enable extraordinarily high patent output. Many top inventors are associated with large Japanese and Korean electronics firms that emphasize systematic patent generation.
New Inventors Entering the System
Number of inventors filing their first US patent each year.
The steady inflow of new inventors is a barometer for the health of the innovation ecosystem, indicating continued broadening of the inventor base despite increasing specialization.
The flow of new inventors into the patent system has grown dramatically, peaking in recent years. This reflects both the expansion of technology industries and the increasing globalization of R&D, as inventors from around the world file patents through the US system.
Inventor Impact
Being prolific does not necessarily mean being impactful. Forward citationsforward citationsThe number of times a patent is cited by later patents. A widely used proxy for patent impact and technological importance. -- how often an inventor's patents are cited by others -- reveal whether their innovations serve as building blocks for future inventions.
Star Inventor Impact by Citation Average
Average and median forward citations per patent for the top 100 prolific inventors. Limited to patents granted through 2020.
Prolificacy and impact are distinct dimensions of inventor performance. Some high-volume inventors generate modest citations per patent, while others achieve exceptional influence with fewer patents.
Career Longevity
How long do inventors remain active in the patent system? Career survival curves show what fraction of inventors who entered in each 5-year cohort continue patenting over time -- revealing patterns of persistence and attrition.
Inventor Career Survival by Entry Cohort
Percentage of inventors still active (with at least one patent) at each career length, by 5-year entry cohort.
The steep initial drop in survival curves reveals that most inventors patent only once. Those who persist beyond the first few years tend to have long, productive careers.
Superstar Inventor Concentration
What share of all patents comes from the most prolific inventors? Tracking the concentration of patenting activity among the top 1% and top 5% of inventors by cumulative patent count reveals whether innovation is becoming more or less democratized over time.
Share of Patents by Top Inventors
Percentage of patents each year from the top 1% and top 5% of inventors (by cumulative patent count).
Rising concentration of patents among top inventors suggests that innovation is increasingly driven by professional, repeat inventors rather than one-time contributors.
Solo Inventors: An Endangered Species?
The lone inventor working in a garage is a powerful cultural archetype. But is solo invention actually disappearing? Tracking the share of patents with a single inventor reveals how the nature of innovation has shifted toward team-based approaches.
Solo Inventor Share Over Time
Percentage of utility patents with a single named inventor.
The decline of solo invention underscores how modern technology development increasingly demands diverse, interdisciplinary expertise that no single person can provide.
First-Time Inventors
Is the patent system bringing in fresh talent, or is it increasingly dominated by repeat players? We track the share of patents each year that include at least one inventor filing for the first time.
Share of Patents with First-Time Inventors
Percentage of patents each year with at least one inventor who has never appeared on a prior patent.
The declining share of first-time inventors suggests the patent system increasingly favors experienced, repeat inventors, raising questions about barriers to entry for newcomers.
Inventor Mobility
Do inventors who move between organizations produce higher-impact work? Comparing forward citation counts for mobile inventors (those who have patented at multiple organizations) versus non-mobile inventors reveals whether career mobility is associated with innovation quality.
Inventor Mobility Rate by Decade
Percentage of prolific inventors (5+ patents per decade) who patented at multiple organizations.
Rising inventor mobility reflects the growing fluidity of the technology labor market, where career moves between organizations serve as channels for knowledge transfer.
The Gender Innovation Gap
Beyond overall gender trends, deeper analysis reveals important differences in where women innovate, how gender-diverse teams perform, and how female participation varies across technology fields.
Female Inventor Share by Technology Area
Percentage of inventors who are female, by CPC section, in 5-year periods.
The technology-specific gender gap mirrors the composition of STEM degree pipelines. Fields with higher female enrollment — chemistry, life sciences — show higher female inventor representation.
Serial Inventors vs. One-Hit Wonders
How much of the patent stock is produced by repeat inventors versus one-time filers? Segmenting inventors by their total patent count reveals a highly skewed distribution: most inventors file only a single patent, but a small group of prolific "mega-inventors" accounts for a disproportionate share of total output.
Patent Share by Inventor Segment
Share of total patents produced by each inventor segment.
A small group of prolific and mega-inventors produces a disproportionate share of all patents, while the majority of inventors file only once. This extreme skewness mirrors broader patterns of productivity inequality in creative work.
One-Hit Wonder Share Over Time
Percentage of active inventors each year who have filed exactly one patent in the dataset. Declining share suggests increasing professionalization of patenting.
The share of one-hit wonder inventors has fluctuated over time but shows a gradual decline, suggesting that patenting is becoming more concentrated among repeat filers as the patent system grows more complex and costly to navigate.
Inventor Career Trajectories
How does inventive productivity evolve over a career? By tracking inventors with at least 5 patents, we can reconstruct the typical career productivity curve -- from the first patent through peak output and eventual decline. These curves reveal universal patterns in how inventive careers unfold.
Average Productivity by Career Year
Average patents per year at each career year (years since first patent) for inventors with 5+ lifetime patents. Shaded band shows 25th–75th percentile range.
Inventor productivity typically peaks 5–10 years into a career, then gradually declines. The wide interquartile range suggests enormous heterogeneity — some inventors sustain high output for decades while others taper off quickly.
Career Duration Distribution
Distribution of career durations (years between first and last patent) for inventors with 5+ patents.
Most prolific inventor careers span 5–15 years, but a long tail of inventors sustain 30+ year careers. These ultra-long careers are disproportionately found in pharmaceutical and semiconductor companies.
Technology Specialization vs. Generalism
Do inventors become more specialized or more general over time? Using the Shannon entropyShannon entropyA measure of diversity or uncertainty in a distribution. Higher entropy means a more evenly spread portfolio across technology classes; lower entropy means concentration in fewer areas. of each inventor's CPC section distribution, we classify prolific inventors (10+ patents) as specialists, moderates, or generalists.
Inventor Specialization by Decade
Share of prolific inventors (10+ patents) classified as specialist, moderate, or generalist by the decade of their first patent.
The share of specialist inventors has increased over time, consistent with the growing complexity and depth of modern technology fields. However, generalists — inventors who span multiple CPC sections — remain a persistent minority.
Comeback Inventors
Some inventors disappear from the patent record for years, only to return with new inventions. These "comeback" inventors — with gaps of 5+ years between patents — offer insights into career interruptions and reinventions.
Comeback Inventors by Gap Duration
Number of inventors returning to patenting after gaps of 5+ years, by gap length.
Most comebacks occur after 5–7 year gaps, with the number declining sharply for longer absences. Notably, a significant fraction of returning inventors change both their employer and technology field, suggesting these gaps often coincide with career pivots.
Having explored the people behind the patents -- their teams, careers, and demographics -- the next chapter examines where these inventors are located. The geography of innovation is far from uniform: a handful of cities, states, and countries account for a disproportionate share of patent output, and inventor mobility creates critical channels for knowledge diffusion between these hubs.
Gender data is based on PatentsView gender attribution using first names. Team size counts all listed inventors per patent. Inventor disambiguation is provided by PatentsView. Citation impact uses forward citations for patents granted through 2020. Career longevity tracks the span from first to last patent year per inventor. Superstar concentration is computed using cumulative patent counts per inventor. Solo inventor analysis uses the inventor count per patent. First-time inventors are identified by their earliest patent filing date. Inventor mobility measures distinct assignee organizations per prolific inventor. Gender analysis uses PatentsView's gender_code field. Career curves and specialization analysis use inventors with 5+ and 10+ patents respectively. Comeback inventors are those with gaps of 5+ years between consecutive patents.