Washington Wire – WSJ.com : Immigrant Innovators
Immigrant Innovators
Start-up engineering and technology companies that had at least one immigrant founder produced $52 billion sales in 2005 and employed about 450,000 workers, according to a study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Duke University.
The study surveyed 28,776 engineering and technology firms that were started between 1995 and 2005, and found that one-quarter had either a chief executive or a chief technology officer who is an immigrant. Of those, one-quarter had Indian-born founders. The biggest share of the start-ups is in California, where almost 40% of new engineering and technology companies have immigrant founders.
The study also found that 24% of international patent applications by U.S.-based inventors were filed by noncitizens. That’s up from 1998, when 7% of patent applications had a foreign inventor or co-inventor. The Berkeley and Duke authors said they reached that conclusion by analyzing World Intellectual Property Organization records for international patent filings by U.S.-resident inventors.
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