In an effort to quantify the contribution of immigrants to U.S. technological innovation, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution performed a study of recent U.S. patents. Using a random selection of 1988 and 1994 patents, we found:

• Based on the responses to our survey, about one patent in four (26.4%) is created by immigrants alone or by immigrants collaborating with U.S.-born co-inventors.

 
• Based on our entire sample (i.e. counting nonresponses as nonimmigrant inventors), about one patent in five (19.2%) involves immigrants as sole or co-inventors. That's a conservative estimate with a 5% margin of error.

Scores of anecdotes have created a poetic image of immigrants who arrive as refugees, students, laborers or professionals and go on to create products, companies and even entire industries. But beyond the anecdotes, can the contributions of immigrants to America's industrial cutting edge be quantified?

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) endeavored to do this by using a well known indicator of technological innovation -- issuance of new patents -- to measure immigrants' inventiveness and spirit of enterprise.

Examining 250 recently issued U.S. patents chosen at random, AdTI found that over 19% of the patents in our sample (48 patents) were issued to immigrants alone or to immigrants collaborating with U.S.-born co-inventors. This is over twice immigrants' proportion of the U.S. population -- 8.7%⁽¹⁾.

The immigrant inventors identified in our study include researchers, executives, entrepreneurs and an MIT professor. Four started their own businesses, generating over 1,600 jobs. Their innovations include:

• a system that protects American troops inside a front-line combat vehicle from chemical, biological and nuclear contamination;

• 100 sensors used on the space shuttle, all produced by a company founded by an immigrant inventor, now employing 1500 people;

 
• components of GE electric power generators that are exported to Japan;

 
• a machine made by a Montana company that generated $10 million in sales last year, and is expected to generate $15 million in sales to both U.S. and export markets this year.

Our findings seem to justify concerns long expressed by foreign governments about the "brain drain" -- the economic loss they suffer when highly skilled citizens emigrate to pursue careers overseas. For example, nearly 2,000 professional or semi-professional South African citizens emigrated in 1994. As a result, some South Africans are concerned that emigration means fewer jobs, a smaller tax base and zero return on the state's investment in educating physicians and other professionals. "For every emigrant -- they are mostly highly qualified -- at least ten local people lose their jobs," said Karen Theron of South Africa's Central Economics Advisory Services.⁽⁴⁾
 

Immigrant Inventors' Stories

As immigrant inventors were identified in the study, the author conducted interviews with many of them. They described their work and their motivations for coming to America, and offered some thoughts as to why the United States attracts inventive people and why they are productive in the U.S. work environment. Some of the information gathered in those interviews follows. The inventors' patent numbers are noted in parentheses.

Fred Kavli is Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Kavlico Corporation in Moore Park, California. Kavli immigrated from Norway in 1956 with a physics degree in hand, and founded the company on a shoestring two years later. "This was the land of opportunity -- especially then," he told us. "There was no other country I could go to to do that."

Kavlico makes sensors, primarily for aeronautical controls and automotive pollution controls. One hundred Kavlico sensors operate on the space shuttle.

Kyong Park is Kavlico's Vice President for Research and Development. A physicist, he came to the U.S. from Korea in 1969 to pursue his education. Park joined Kavlico in 1977 and holds 24 patents.

With Kavli's assistance, Park was able to stay in the United States to pursue his career. He preferred to stay here because Korea was under a "corrupt" military government in the 1970's, where bribery was rife and "only people with connections had opportunity," he said. "Here, if you work hard you have opportunity. People from outside really appreciate this society and this culture."

According to Kavli, Kyong Park was "instrumental" in the pressure sensor development that brought Kavlico into the automotive pollution control market. This has helped to propel Kavlico's growth from $4 million in sales and 120 employees in 1977 to $150 million in sales and 1500 employees today.

Park was reticent to be interviewed, explaining that he does not seek special recognition for his work. But he did describe an experience at a recent company picnic. A colleague pointed to the 3,000 employees and family members and told Park, "See, all these people are making a living because of your hard work." "I never thought of it that way," Park said. "I felt good that I have helped not just my family, but many of those people too." (Kavli/Park joint patent 1988/4735098)

Ram Labhaya Malik of San Jose, California immigrated from India in 1971. An engineer, he is co-inventor of an air purification system now in use in the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a front-line troop carrier. The system protects personnel inside from nuclear, chemical and biological contamination. One of his co-inventors immigrated from the Netherlands, the other is U.S.-born. (1988/4793832)

Richard Baker is founder and president of Membrane Technologies of Menlo Park, California. A native of the United Kingdom, he came to the U.S. to pursue post-doctoral studies, was offered a job and immigrated in 1966. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and has 57 patents. His company employs 30 people. Membrane Technologies produces and sells air purification systems and conducts scientific research under government contract. (1994/5364629)

Aleksander Owczarz is a mechanical engineer at Semitool Inc., a Kalispell, Montana company that makes capital equipment for the semiconductor industry. Dissatisfied with the system in Poland ("It was not my cup of tea"), he emigrated in 1978 to seek new opportunity in the United States. He stopped counting his patents when his 25th was issued. His latest patent is for a precision cleaning machine for wafer boxes and wafer carriers. Over 20 Semitool employees work full-time manufacturing that machine. It is sold in the U.S., Europe and Asia; sales were $10 million in 1995 and are projected to grow to $15 million this year. "It's not just bright people" that lead to technological innovation, he said. "The combination of bright individuals and the right environment is what makes people productive here." (1994/5357991)

Ernesto Blanco immigrated from Cuba in 1960 and teaches engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds thirteen patents. In our sample, we found a design for a flexible arm for medical endoscopes (diagnostic and surgical devices) that he and a student created for Johnson & Johnson. Discussing the propensity of immigrants to work hard in scientific and technological research, he said, "It's the environment here and the way we immigrants think about the United States as a land where great inventions are being made. Immigrants feel the way to break the economic barrier is to invent something that will be of use to large numbers of Americans. We become worthy by using our brains." (1994/5348259)

Anatoly Galperin, an engineer, came to the U.S. as a refugee from Russia in 1989. He works for the Miller Edge company in Concordville, Pennsylvania. In Russia, he worked in telecommunications; here, his field is sensors, including the invention found in our sample: a safety feature ("sensing edge") of mechanical doors sold throughout the U.S. and to some overseas customers. (1994/5299387)

Michael Pryor of Woodbridge, Connecticut immigrated from England in 1953 with a doctorate in metallurgy. He holds 130 U.S. patents, and became Vice President for Metals Research at the Olin Corporation in 1973. He is now retired. At Olin, he calculated that the research department he directed produced a three-to-one monetary return. Its innovations include alloys, manufacturing processes, and the process used to produce the metal composites needed to mint quarters and dimes ever since the 90% silver-10% copper blend was discontinued. Pryor recruited both U.S.-born and immigrant scientists for his labs, and expressed particular admiration for Indian and Asian metallurgists. "I didn't hire immigrants because I wanted to," he said, "there were just not enough U.S. citizens graduating to fill up the ranks -- there was too much competition from other labs and universities." (1988/4781050)

Angela Michaels of Elkhart, Indiana is a chemist who works for the Bayer Corporation. She immigrated from Italy in 1962. She holds six patents; all are in use in Bayer's products, including "dip and read" urinalysis strips for kidney disease detection. (1988/4717658)

Sung Kwon of Burnsville, Minnesota was among many inventors drawn to the United States for educational opportunity. After completing his undergraduate work at the best university in Korea, he came to the University of Minnesota in 1965 to pursue the advanced engineering studies that was "not available in Korea." He is now employed at Thermo King Corporation (a Westinghouse division) and holds seven US patents. (1994/5288643)

Jacob Haller and his family immigrated to the United States from the former Yugoslavia in 1955. An engineer, he founded the Emconn Tool company of Wheeling, Illinois and holds six patents. Emconn makes equipment for the electrical connector industry; its customers are the major telecommunications companies. After building the company up to 20 employees, Haller sold the manufacturing operation and now works with one other employee developing new products. (1988/4718167)

David Lomas of Arlington Heights, Indiana is a chemical engineer with the UOP corporation. He came to the United States from England in 1973. He holds over 30 patents; the invention in our sample is a "catalytic cracking" process used in petroleum refining. (1988/4757039)

Mohamed Hashem, a chemist, is an Egyptian-born immigrant working for the Rhone-Poulenc corporation's unit in Cranbury, NJ. He holds about two dozen patents, several of which are in commercial use, principally polymers for paints and coatings. (1988/4760152)

Ian Crawford, an electrical engineer from Scotland, was offered a job in the U.S. while here on a sales trip in 1980. Dissatisfied with the opportunities before him in Scotland, he took the job, came to the United States and went on to found his own company. Analog Modules of Orlando, Florida now employs over 60 people in the design, development and manufacture of laser electronics. (1994/5311353)

Mitchell Budniak of Skokie, Illinois is an electrical engineer who holds six patents. He and his parents were taken from their native Poland to Germany during World War II where, he said, his parents "were basically slave labor." When the war ended, Budniak was eleven years old, and they came to the United States. His patents include a blood analysis unit and a computerized unit that monitors the vital signs of at-home patients and dispenses medication. (1988/4740080)

The late Stephen Slovenkai of Leominster, Massachusetts had a 30-year chemical engineering career, including a patent for a polymer fabrication method. In 1940 at age 14, he came to the United States from the former Czechoslovakia. His family settled in northeastern Pennsylvania, where his father worked as a coal miner and he graduated first in his high school class. He joined the U.S. Army and served in the postwar occupation forces in Italy. (1988/4730027)

Ranjit Gill of Schenectady, New York is an engineer who immigrated from India in 1970. The invention we encountered in our study is a cooling system that his employer, GE, has put to use in the world's largest electrical power generators, which are exported to Japan. (1994/5374866)

Dodd Wing Fong of Naperville, Illinois is a chemist who came to the United States from Hong Kong in 1962 to attend graduate school. He holds over 70 patents; the one encountered in our study is a polymer used in water purification. (1988/4731419)
 

How this Study Was Conducted

Sample. This study was performed by contacting inventors whose inventions resulted in U.S. patents issued in 1988 and 1994. To generate a random sample of 250 patents approved in 1988 and 1994, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution created a random list of patent numbers from those years, and drew our sample from that list.⁽⁶⁾ This process generated patents issued to both U.S. and foreign inventors. Excluding the patents issued to inventors living overseas, we were left with a sample of 122 1988 patents and 128 1994 patents. The years 1988 and 1994 were chosen to yield a sample including both very recent patents and patents that might have been used in commercial applications.

Canvassing. Using the home addresses in the patent applications, we attempted to reach these inventors by phone and/or letter. When we could not reach an inventor by mail or telephone, or through a representative such as a patent attorney, that patent was listed as "no response." The canvassing took place between January 15 and March 4, 1996.

Margin of error. This survey's margin of error is 4.9% at a 95% confidence level. That is, there is 95% likelihood that identical surveys will yield results within a range 4.9 percentage points higher or lower than the result found here (19.2%, or 48 immigant inventors/250 patents). Because we effectively counted as non-immigrants those inventors who did not respond or could not be reached, our finding of 19.2% immigrant inventors is probably conservative.
 
 
 
 

1. 1994 foreign-born population as a percentage of total U.S. population, based on the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. 

2. Bill Gates, "A World of Talent Out There," The Buffalo News, January 2, 1996, p. E7. 

3. Author's interview with inventor Andrew Olah of Spencer, Ohio, February 13, 1996. 

4. Johan Coetzee, "Emigration Costs Country 10,000 Jobs Yearly," Johannesburg BEELD, December 1, 1995, p. S2. 

5. Of these patents, 22 were issued to one or more immigrant inventors working without U.S.-born co-inventors, and 26 were issued to one or more immigrants working in combination with one or more U.S.-born co-inventors. 

6. We generated the list using a Lotus spreadsheet, using the formula P=(RN)+L, where P is the patent number, R is a random number between 0 and 1, N is the number of patents issued in the year (1988 or 1994) and L is the lowest patent number issued in that year. Patent numbers are assigned consecutively and sequentially.