Rochester, New York is a city of innovation. Rochester was ranked 1st for patent registration among 125 world regions in World Knowledge Competitiveness Index 2003-2004: Benchmarking the Globe's Leading Knowledge Economy Regions, Robert Huggins Business and Economic Policy Press. It was also ranked 1st for Utility Patents Issued by Metropolitan New Economy Index: Benchmarking Economic Transformation in the Nation's Metropolitan Area, 2001. Rochester boasts 2.33 patents per 1,000 workers (more than 500% of the U.S. average of only 0.40 patents per 1,000 workers).

International giants such as Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lombs have vast patent portfolios. The University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology also generate patentable research that is commercialized. Rochester innovations are also the subject of international patents. There are also innovations of independent inventors and entrepreneurs.

Leading Rochester research and innovations include

• Donald Young, M.D and his team’s discovery of the gene that contains the chemical instructions for producing the enzyme called cox-2, and revealed the enzyme's role in causing inflammation methods for “selectively inhibiting PGHS-2 activity in a human host, comprising administering a nonsteroidal compound that selectively inhibits activity of the PGHS-2 gene product to a human host in need of such treatment.” United States patent 6,048,850. This technology led to a new genre of pain relievers such as Celebrex and other popular Cox-2 inhibitors.
• work performed by virologists Robert Rose, Ph.D., William Bonnez, M.D., and Richard Reichman, M.D. for creating a way to protect the body against human papillomaviruses (HPV), which cause cervical cancer in women (granted a patent issued by the European Patent Office). The University’s technology is a key element of vaccines widely used and publicized in prime time commercials in commericial vaccine products known as Gardasil, developed by pharmaceutical giant Merck, and Cervarix, developed by GlaxoSmithKline for introduction in the near future.
• Steven E. Feldon, MD’s device designed to detect glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness. United States patent 4,817,432.
• Kevin Parker and Theophano Mitsa’s computer technology called “Blue Noise Mask,” which makes possible the rapid creation of high-quality halftone images. The technology is the subject of six U.S. patents (5,726,772, 5,708,518, 5,543,941, 5,477,305, 5,341,228, and 5,111,310) and several international patents. A medical imaging research project ended up as a technology that improves printing speed and quality in printers throughout the world. Many companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark International, and Seiko-Epson, have licensed the technology, which is widely used in the computing graphic arts and printing industry around the world.

* Please note that the above patents arise from technologies developed in Rochester and not necessarily of clients of this firm.