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Ingenious Dutch research center boasts one patent created 'every 20 minutes'

The city responsible for the first solar-powered family car and a building shaped like a UFO is no stranger to creativity. Eindhoven, Netherlands was recently named "most inventive city" by Forbes magazine, probably thanks to the High Tech Campus (HTC) research and development center located there. The HTC is the result of the Dutch government's initiative to bolster high-tech innovation in the region after rounds of layoffs from companies like Philips. Scads of tech firms are holed up within HTC's walls including IBM, Intel and Accenture, with a focus on open cooperation and sharing of ideas and resources. Apparently, this has paid off in spades. According to the HTC's website, the campus is responsible for roughly 50 percent of the Netherlands' almost 10,000 patents each year. Yowza.

[Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons]