In a recent study, it is found that students and researchers from overseas nations file 76% of patents at the top universities of America.
On last Tuesday, this particular study was released following another newly published report which revealed that immigrants in this nation are more likely to do business than US nationals. After conducting the study, the “Partnership for a New American Economy” group has claimed that due to the strict policy of immigration, United States is unable to keep highly skilled overseas professionals in the nation.
This particular group took data from ten universities producing the maximum patents in the year of 2011, which revealed that most of those were from overseas students. The patents issued to the universities counted as less than 2% of the 244,341 patents issued in the year of 2010. Most of these patents are issued to government organizations and corporations.
The group reportedly said that under the existing immigration policy of US, while a large number of the inventors are graduate students, they are not qualified to obtain a visa which will allow them to stay in the country and help potentially in creating jobs. Besides, it is also found that 99% of the patents by the overseas inventors basically were in engineering, science, technology and math (ESTM), while the United States is likely to experience a shortage of 230,000 skilled ESTM professionals with advanced-degree by the year of 2018.
These overseas inventors have been leading innovation in various progressive fields, such as: 87% in semiconductor device manufacturing, 83% in digital or pulse communications, 84% in information technology, 79% drug compounds or pharmaceutical drugs and 77% in optics.
However, over half of these patents, i.e., 54% were granted to the group of overseas inventors very likely to experience visa problems: students, staff researchers or post-doctoral fellows.
Apart from these, the group asks for providing the “bipartisan solution” to the US President and the Congress, which provide the guarantee that the top foreign graduates will get an easier way for US green card and to remove or raise H-1B restrictions.
Pursuant to an announcement by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), from June 11, this year, the 65,000 petition caps for popular H-1B visa have been met for financial year of 2013. Moreover, the 20,000 cap for the advanced degree H-1B visa petition was met on June 7, this year.
