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Foreign scientists and engineers working in the United States constitute a growing share of the country's innovation capital. Last year, that pool of talent contributed to 26% of U.S. patent applications filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). That's over three times more than their percentage in 1998, an explosion likely triggered by increased delays in the awarding of green cards and citizenship to immigrant scientists, according to researchers who did the study (www.globalizationresearch.com).

Vivek Wadhwa, a researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and his colleagues counted up the share of patent applications filed at WIPO's U.S. office that listed a U.S.-based foreign national as one of the inventors. In another part of the study, the researchers estimate that more than 1 million foreign-born workers are waiting for employment-based green cards. "There are a lot of very bright people that we brought to the U.S. in order to create intellectual property," says Wadhwa. "Let's keep them."

Source: Newsmakers, Science, Volume 317, Number 5843, Issue of 07 September 2007.