Forbes on America's Most Inventive Companies

Here is an interesting story from Forbes on America's Most Inventive Companies. What was most interesting was not the fact that companies with patent make money -- but the differential among companies:

foreign electronics manufacturers dominated the Top 10 in patent awards, but didn't come close to the earnings power of the top U.S. companies. Look behind the raw number of patents, and U.S. companies far outperformed their foreign competitors on return on invested capital, a measure of how after-tax operating profits compare to assets invested in the business.
. . .
Measured according to earnings per patent, General Electric led with $11.3 million per patent, followed by Cisco Systems at $6.6 million and Hewlett-Packard at $6.3 million.

The story also notes the companies not on the list (of "most inventive"):

Big chemical companies like Exxon and Dow, and drug makers like Pfizer and Merck, who arguably derive more value from a given patent than any other type of company.

So, in other words, it is not how many patents you have but what you do with them that really counts.