[wastedbrains]

If you don't really agree with software patents this measure doesn't work well...

[gojomo]

I doubt software patents contribute much to the totals, or would change the rankings if left out. Same for business method patents.

And you might disagree with patents entirely but still see them as correlated with a certain type of intelligent opportunism.

Pretty sure Idaho owes its ranking to a few key corporate research groups in patent-heavy fields -- HP, Micron, ?