Today they produce way more patents than all other western countries combined

From A tale of two American cities by Ed West.  The subheading is How Austin is winning the battle for talent. 

In his gigantic History of the American People, Paul Johnson noted that ‘from 1790 to 1811 the US Patent Office reported an annual average of seventy-seven registrations. By the 1830s it had jumped to 544 annually, by the 1840s to 6,480 and in the 1850s over 28,000 every year.’ Between 1865 and 1900 the US Patent Office issued half a million registrations, and the country produced an extraordinary number of world-changing inventions, from electric light bulbs to record players and telephones. Today they produce way more patents than all other western countries combined, reflecting their love of experimentation, and this extends beyond science.