In several recent columns, we examined the need for educated people to aid our national prosperity. We also studied the outlooks for U.S. industry in an intensely competitive world where improvements to standard of living greatly depend on innovation. This month we will explore the statistical history of American innovation and the surprising record of conversion of ideas to commercial reality. This was all studied by Greg Stevens and James Burley for the Industrial Research Institute in a report titled “3,000 Raw Ideas = 1 Commercial Success!”