Utahns' patents up 26% in '06

The final patent numbers for 2006 are in.

A record 944 patents were granted to Utah inventors in 2006, a 26 percent increase over the 749 patents granted to Utahns in 2005. The increase is a more modest 3 percent when compared with 2001, the previous record year, in which Utah inventors netted 917 patents.

The total number of patents granted by the U.S. Patent Office also rose sharply to 196,441 in 2006, up 24.4 percent from the 157,882 patents it granted in 2005.

As innovation increased in the 1980s and 1990s, the number of patents granted annually to Utahns rose steadily each year, until 2002. The annual patent totals dropped in 2002 and 2003. The receding economic times of 2001 had been blamed as a primary reason for the slide.

Economic recovery fueled an increase to 900 patents granted to Utahns in 2004. A record drop followed in 2005, to 749 patents, which was seen as the result of a huge nationwide increase in innovation and consequential backlogs in an understaffed U.S. Patent Office. The Patent Office has taken steps to better manage the steady increases in innovation.

Patent grants to Utahns had climbed steadily each year since the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Utahns typically were granted about 200 patents annually. Since 1988, a year in which Utah inventors garnered 292 patents, Utahns' patent numbers increased annually until 2002, a span that involved sometimes dramatic annual increases reaching as high as 35 percent in some years.

Nineteen patents were awarded to Utah inventors on Dec. 26, 2006, including:

• Mounting apparatus for pool cover assembly. Lanny R. Smith, Alpine. Filed Feb. 19, 2004. Patent No. 7,152,254.

• Apparatus for adjusting an operational point of an engine. Lawrence B. Forbush, Harrisville, Weber County. Assigned to Amalgamated Performance Enhancements LLC, Las Vegas. Filed Aug. 14, 2003. Patent No. 7,152,557.

• Endotracheal catheter and manifold assembly with improved valve. Chet M. Crump, Draper; Edward B. Madsen, Riverton. Assigned to Kimberly-Clark Worldwide Inc., Neenah, Wis. Filed Dec. 13, 1999. Patent No. 7,152,603.

• Brake flush accelerator. Jon A. Petty, Loa, Wayne County. Assigned to Phoenix Systems LLC, Bicknell, Wayne County. Filed Nov. 23, 2005, claiming priority to multiple prior patent applications. Patent No. 7,152,636.

• Cutting element structure for roller cone bit. Richard Butland, Calgary, Canada; John J. Herman, Airdrie, Canada; Ronald Birne-Browne, Per Nese, Calgary, Canada; Louis Louiselle, Edmonton, Canada; J. Daniel Delnap, Pleasant Grove. Assigned to Smith International Inc., Houston. Filed Aug. 17, 2004, claiming priority to provisional patent Application No. 60/498,822, filed Aug. 29, 2003. Patent No. 7,152,701.