Search for inventors is a patent struggle

What living person holds the most U.S. patents? In this era of information and lightning searches - when patents are both more valuable than ever and a source of raging controversy - you'd think such a simple question would be easy to answer.

America cannot identify its most prolific living inventors. We can't single out these people who should be considered national treasures.

As it turns out, the USPTO has but one guy who does statistical studies of the agency's 7 million-patent database. He last sorted for individual inventors in 1997, and has since been too busy with other projects to update that list.

Anyone can go to the USPTO's website, type in an individual's name, and get a list of all the patents granted that person. But you have to start with a name. You can't set up an open-ended search that finds the names that appear most often. There's no easy way to let the database generate a list of top inventors.

America's greatest inventor is apparently an obscure guy in Japan who makes stuff most people can't comprehend. And the nation's greatest native inventor seems to be a man who has come up with 100 different ways to make a flower pot.