On Dec. 15, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that Montana State University will be home to a newly established Community Engagement Office for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The MSU-based office will join Dallas and San Francisco as the largest hubs west of the Mississippi providing trademark and patent services to U.S. innovators.

The new office will support workforce development in the state and region, especially in the advanced manufacturing and computing sectors, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said. The office will provide inventors and entrepreneurs a direct connection to federal intellectual property resources and guidance tailored to Montana’s technology ecosystem, the release said. 

The announcement follows the closure of the USPTO’s Rocky Mountain Regional Outreach Office in Denver this past October. The MSU-located office will serve part of an eight-state area including Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

Scientists perform cutting-edge research in fields such as engineering, national security, cybersecurity, bioscience, energy, agriculture, optics and quantum computing, among many others. In 2025, MSU reported a new record level of research expenditures with $288.7 million, most from federal funders, such as the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture. In total, MSU’s research enterprise is larger than all other public and private universities in the state combined.

The university’s Technology Transfer Office drives the translation of university research into practice, including commercializing innovations. The office collaborates with industry, faculty, researchers, universities and industry partners to manage more than 700 technologies in wide-ranging fields from biotechnology and photonics to engineering and precision agriculture. Its work has resulted in more than 400 patents, plant variety protections, trademarks and copyrights and over 60 startups and spinout companies. Patents have been issued for MSU-developed technologies including a pest-fighting fungi meant to combat wheat stem sawfly, a radiation-tolerant computer meant for operation in outer space and lidar technologies for weather prediction, among many others.