San Jose, San Francisco in top 3 of most innovative U.S. metros, report finds

San Jose is the nation’s most innovative metro area while San Francisco comes in at No. 3, according to a new study that examined artificial intelligence and machine-learning patent activity across the nation.

The San Jose metro area — which covers all of Santa Clara and San Benito counties — racked up 9,798 patents in 2022, according to the ranking by CommercialCafe. The San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro area had 4,919 patents during the year.

Between the two Bay Area regions was the metro area that covers New York City. It had 6,275 patents.

Silicon Valley’s dominance is due in part to the research culture that exists in the region, where technology is often developed before specific products are envisioned, the report said.

The report’s authors said that 4,980 U.S. entities had obtained at least one AI or machine learning patent by the end of 2022. They said patent numbers started increasing notably after 2010 but shot up from 2019 through 2021.

The all-time high point was 2021, when nearly 10,000 patents were issued nationwide, up from 8,304 the year before and significantly higher than 2022’s 4,909.

In every year analyzed, the leading companies for patents were IBM, Microsoft and Google. IBM commands the patent count with more than 4,580 filed between 2010 and 2022. Microsoft had 2,345 patents and Google had 1,950.

In fourth place is Santa Clara-based Intel Corp. Intel started surging with patents after about 2015, and came close to closing the gap with Google, clocking in at 1,490 AI patents by the end of 2022.

CommercialCafe used data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office obtained in 2022 and said its numbers may not reflect the total of relevant patents issued.

Here’s a look at all 25 metros that made CommercialCafe’s top 25, along with their patent totals as of 2022: