California ranks #1 among US states for total patents filed in 2024, with 158,739 patents from 67,048 inventors across 775 cities. On a per-capita basis that is 4.0 patents per 1,000 residents, a standard benchmark for comparing state-level R&D intensity.
Top Cities in California 2024
| Rank | City | Patents | Inventors |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | San Diego, CA | 19,371 | 4,598 |
| #2 | San Jose, CA | 17,191 | 6,779 |
| #3 | San Francisco, CA | 16,570 | 7,122 |
| #4 | Sunnyvale, CA | 6,782 | 3,000 |
| #5 | Mountain View, CA | 5,609 | 2,666 |
| #6 | Santa Clara, CA | 5,034 | 2,178 |
| #7 | Palo Alto, CA | 4,909 | 1,994 |
| #8 | Cupertino, CA | 4,169 | 1,456 |
| #9 | Fremont, CA | 4,079 | 1,881 |
| #10 | Los Angeles, CA | 3,965 | 1,953 |
| #11 | Irvine, CA | 2,316 | 1,176 |
| #12 | Redwood City, CA | 2,203 | 1,037 |
| #13 | Saratoga, CA | 2,060 | 570 |
| #14 | San Mateo, CA | 1,989 | 976 |
| #15 | Los Altos, CA | 1,860 | 734 |
| #16 | Oakland, CA | 1,783 | 930 |
| #17 | Los Gatos, CA | 1,780 | 581 |
| #18 | Pleasanton, CA | 1,675 | 699 |
| #19 | Menlo Park, CA | 1,615 | 715 |
| #20 | Santa Monica, CA | 1,418 | 583 |
| #21 | Berkeley, CA | 1,412 | 788 |
| #22 | Campbell, CA | 1,335 | 494 |
| #23 | Milpitas, CA | 1,332 | 679 |
| #24 | San Ramon, CA | 1,197 | 515 |
| #25 | Carlsbad, CA | 1,095 | 493 |
Top Inventors in California 2024
| Rank | Inventor | City | Company | Patents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tao Luo | San Diego | Qualcomm | 857 |
| 2 | Xiaoxia Zhang | San Diego | Qualcomm | 410 |
| 3 | Dawei Zhang | Saratoga | Apple | 387 |
| #4 | Peter Gaal | San Diego | Qualcomm | 351 |
| #5 | Jing Sun | San Diego | Qualcomm | 347 |
| #6 | Shan Liu | San Jose | Tencent America | 323 |
| #7 | Wei Zeng | San Diego | Apple | 273 |
| #8 | Hong He | Cupertino | Apple | 272 |
| #9 | Wanshi Chen | San Diego | Qualcomm | 267 |
| #10 | Haitong Sun | Cupertino | Apple | 266 |
| #11 | Kai Zhang | San Diego | Bytedance | 252 |
| #12 | Li Zhang | San Diego | Bytedance | 235 |
| #13 | Yan Zhou | San Diego | Qualcomm | 229 |
| #14 | Sony Akkarakaran | Poway | — | 226 |
| #15 | Chunxuan Ye | San Diego | Apple | 218 |
| #16 | Oghenekome Oteri | San Diego | Apple | 202 |
| #17 | Jie Cui | San Jose | Apple | 200 |
| #18 | Weidong Yang | San Diego | Apple | 192 |
| #19 | Juan Montojo | San Diego | Qualcomm | 190 |
| #20 | Jonathan P. Ive | San Francisco | Apple | 187 |
| #20 | Yang Tang | Santa Clara | Apple | 187 |
| #22 | Duncan Robert Kerr | San Francisco | Apple | 177 |
| #23 | Seyedkianoush Hosseini | San Diego | Qualcomm | 175 |
| #24 | Bartley K. Andre | Los Gatos | Apple | 169 |
| #25 | Eugene Antony Whang | San Francisco | Apple | 167 |