Los Angeles has lost its bid for a U.S. patent satellite office. Silicon Valley has been selected as the California site.

U.S. Commerce Department officials on Monday announced that regional patent offices will be opened in Dallas, Denver and Silicon Valley, in addition to a regional office in Detroit that’s slated to open next week.

The satellite offices were authorized under federal legislation aimed at reducing a three-year patent backlog and boosting the agency’s technical expertise.

Los Angeles was one of more than 50 metropolitan areas where supporters had expressed interest in a regional patent office. Los Angeles city and USC officials based their case on the wide range of patents generated in the Southern California region, the proximity of USC, UCLA and Caltech, and the lower cost of living for patent office workers compared with Silicon Valley.

But Silicon Valley won out based on numbers of patents. That region generates more than four times the patent volume each year than Los Angeles.