Corning patents on the rise, RIT and U of R showcase university tech

That faster pace of innovation has also resulted in filing by the company of more applications for patents — more than 400 in the United States alone last year. Worldwide, the company has nearly 7,000 patent applications pending. Approval in the United States can take up to four years. Corning Inc. got its first patent — entitled "Improvement in Semaphore-Lenses" — on Feb. 20, 1877. The inventor was Charles Frederic Houghton, a member of the company's founding family. Today, the company holds some 4,370 unexpired patents, more than half of them granted in the U.S. Patents generally expire 20 years after they are approved.

For many years, the conventional wisdom was that the corporate income tax was principally borne by the owners of capital in the form of lower returns. Now, with more mobile capital, workers are bearing more of the burden in the form of lower wages and productivity as investments move around the world in search of better tax treatment and higher returns. In this environment, a high corporate tax rate not only undermines the growth and competitiveness of American companies; it is also increasingly ineffective as a tool to achieve more progressive outcomes in the taxation of capital and labor income. The Obama administration and many members of Congress are calling for a significant reduction in the corporate tax rate to promote jobs and competitiveness, as well as a move to a territorial tax system.