RALEIGH — Spore, a provider of intellectual property consulting services and software, will work with a federally funded initiative in Western North Carolina on technology transfer of patents related to energy efficiency, the company said Monday.
Spore was selected by the Western North Carolina Center for Technology Commercialization (WNCCTC) as part of a project intended to help turn more than 300 patented applications into new business. The patents include biology/chemistry, electrical/mechanical and materials engineering.
“Spore is the first company to offer an IP software tool designed to simplify the patent process in the most efficient and cost effective way possible,” said JiNan Glasgow, the founder and CEO of Spore. She also is a practicing patent attorney and a former patent examiner with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
“After a decade of working with traditional patent processes that were substantially manual reviews of extraordinary amounts of electronic data, I realized the need for a tool to help companies grasp the power of patents in a systematic way to stay competitive and maximize the value of their patent portfolios,” she explained. “By communicating with patent attorneys and optimizing the use of outside counsel, our customers can save money and time by utilizing Spore and (its) Patent Matrix software tools.”
The Department of Energy funds the WNCCTC through the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It is managed by the Institute of Biltmore, which is based in Asheville.
“Reviewing a patent – let alone 300 of them – can be expensive and time consuming when done using traditional methods,” Glasgow said. “Our patent-pending software and methods of analysis streamlined the process for the WNCCTC by using proprietary algorithms and exclusive visual representations of large amounts of patent data.”
Spore has developed software that provides patent analysis. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is currently reviewing the software, according to Spore.
The WNCCTC effort includes creation of portfolios of patents that may include several different institutions and applications.
“Spore’s advanced (intellectual property) software tools were essential for meeting our project’s objectives and staying within the time and budget constraints,” said Bob Goodale, principal investigator for the DOE project.
Spore uses search and matrix technology to review, organize and classify the patents and technolofies.
The WNCCTC will introduce the technology at its Energy Efficient Technology and Business Fair on Jan. 25 in Enka, NC.
To see the results of the Sport project, go to: spore.patentmatrix.com/projects/wncctc/
Spore: www.sporeusa.com
