117. Patent Productivity Among Academic Plastic Surgeons in The United States Over 20 Years

PURPOSE: Innovation is a cornerstone of plastic and reconstructive surgery. Patent filings are one way to measure innovation. The purpose of this study was to quantify and understand patent productivity in the career of academic plastic surgeons over the last 20 years. METHODS: Faculty affiliated with United States academic medical centers with integrated plastic surgery residencies were searched by name on Google Patents from inception through April 2024. Included patents were active or pending in the US and related to a fundamental clinical or basic science area of plastic surgery. We additionally queried meta-data not offered on patent filings, such as institutional intellectual property policies, to assess factors associated with patent generation. RESULTS: Among 977 academic plastic surgeons across 89 programs, there were 191 active or pending patents published by 68 (7.0%) surgeons, of which 16.2% were female and 16.2% held a PhD. The average number of patents per inventor was 2.8 ± 4.3. The highest number of active or pending patents attributed to a surgeon-inventor was 25. Nearly 50% (n=91) of patents were held by four universities. Time since initial board certification correlated poorly with the number of patents produced (R2 = 0.17, P > 0.1). The relationship between being at a center of innovation (i.e. having relatively more program affiliated patents) and having more patent-producers was positive (rs = 0.66; n = 38, P <0.001). The association between faculty size and overall number of patents was weak (rs = 0.34; n = 38, p = 0.035). Regarding intuitional intellectual property policies, there was no indication that higher percent revenue distribution to an inventor increased patent productivity (rs = 0.002; P > 0.05). The majority of patents were related to advances in methods, techniques, and systems (60%), while surgical instruments represented 28%, and novel materials or tissue engineering patents made up 12%. CONCLUSIONS: Over the last twenty years in academic plastic surgery, patent productivity has been concentrated in the work of a limited number of high-output individuals and institutions. Further qualitative and quantitative understanding of these individuals and institutions, with careful review of some systemic factors such as the physician-scientist track within plastic surgery residency, may help to identify strategies for improving innovation within the field and achieving calls to restore the inventiveness at its roots. It may also be fruitful to assess the rate of publications and technology adoption following individual patents as a measure of the relative value of patent generation.