Cone Snails and Rodeos
The FedInvent Patent Newsletter for Patents Granted on February 15, 2022
Hello from FedInvent,
On Tuesday, February 15, 2022, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued 7,187 patents. One hundred thirty-eight (138) of these patents benefitted from taxpayer funding.
In 2022 so far, USPTO has granted 43,803 patents. Eight hundred thirty-four (834) had taxpayer funding.
The FedInvent Report for the 138 FedInvent portfolio patentsĀ is here. If you prefer to browse the patents by the federal department that funded the research, start here.
Cone Snails To The Rescue
Inventors from the University of Utah and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research received US Patent 11248034 for Insulin Analogs from the venom of cone snails. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences at NIH funded this research.
An insulin analog is any of several types of insulin that are altered forms of the hormone insulin, different from any occurring in nature, but still available to the human body for performing the same action as human insulin to control blood glucose levels in diabetes.
Cone snails are predatory sea snails. All cone snails are venomous and capable of "stinging" humans. Cone snails may sting without warning. These stings can be fatal to humans.
The patent provides a chemistry-rich explanation of the cone snail analogs. It doesn't provide details on how to get it out of the cone snails.
A Soft Kill RodeoĀ
This week we have three Bayh-Dole scofflaws. Defense contractors all. DOD almost always funds scofflaws. The challenge is to figure out what part of DOD?Ā Ā The Soft Kill patent got our attention.
BAE Systems Information and Electronic system Integration Inc. received US Patent 11248879, "Soft Kill Laser Configuration for Ground Vehicle Threats." Soft kill? A soft kill countermeasure protects tanks and ground vehicles from anti-tank missiles. BAE's invention alters the trajectory of the incoming missile. A laser beam causes the guidance system of the incoming threat (anti-tank missile) to alter its trajectory toward a second laser beam.Ā
There are soft kill and hard kill countermeasures in the world of ground vehicle survivability and protection. Soft kill jams or deflects the incoming threat. Hard kill refers to firing another projectile, aka missile, at the incoming projectile to blow it up.
BAE provided a useless contract number fragment in their government interest statement. So who buys anti-tank missile countermeasure systems? The Department of Education? The Army buys (and sells via foreign military sales vehicles) ground vehicle protection systems. Improving ground vehicle survivability and protection is a major research area for the Army. So off to Google we went. Here is what we found.
In 2019 the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Ground Vehicle Systems Center conducted a sequence of tests known as the Soft Kill Rodeo. The tests determined which active protection system SK technology had the most potential. Data collected during the Soft Kill Rodeo was analyzed and resulted in the recommendation to integrate BAE Systems' RAVEN countermeasure onto a Bradley Fighting Vehicle for further testing.Ā
BAE's website notes that its RAVEN jammer won the Army's "soft kill rodeo": six weeks of shooting live anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) at targets and seeing which of three competing countermeasures made them miss most. BAE advanced to the next, more challenging round of tests. The BAE jammer was installed on an actual M2 Bradley alongside the Israeli-made Iron Fist, a "hard kill" system that physically shoots down any incoming missiles that soft-kill systems can't trick into going off course.
We will give this one to the Department of the Army, Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Ground Vehicle Systems Center, and the US Army Tank Automotive Research Development Engineering Center (TARDEC) as the organization that funded BAE's work.
Lasers, armored vehicles, launching projectiles. A soft kill rodeo sounds like fun.Ā
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An Air Force Pitch Day Invention
This week we came across our first Pitch Day patent. Pitch Days are a new part of the Air Force's acquisition strategy, designed to create a faster, smarter method to get cutting-edge technologies and capabilities into the hands of warfighters. Think Shark Tank for the military.Ā Ā
Pitch days use a simple process. The Air Force publishes a topic and information about their requirements and invites qualified organizations to come and pitch their solution to a team of Air Force subject matter experts. Vendors submit a fifteen-page proposal with a fifteen-slide pitch deck. Vendors who pass the initial qualification round are invited to the Pitch Day event and deliver a fifteen-minute pitch event, with the same fifteen slides in your proposal. If you win, you get a contract on the spot and paid by a government credit card.Ā Ā
On the first Air Force Pitch Days event, March 6 ā 7th, 2019, in New York, the Air Force gave out 51 initial awards of up to $158,000 with initial payment within minutes of their presentations. In 2019, the Air Force awarded over $131 million through pitch day events.Ā Ā
Inventors from Metis Technology Solutions, Inc. were one of the recipients of an on-the-spot SBIR award at the first Pitch Day. On Tuesday, that team received US Patent 11252178, "System and Method for Automating Security Configuration Standards Assessments and Mitigations." The $158,000 award led to their invention to help cybersecurity engineers manage their STIGS.Ā
If you want to see a cybersecurity professional supporting DOD break out in a cold sweat, say, "is this technology compliant with the most current STIGs?" STIGs ā Security Technical Implementation Guides ā are configuration standards developed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). STIGs give security engineers step-by-step instructions on making device hardware and software as secure as possible, safeguarding the Department of Defense (DoD) IT network and systems. There are overĀ 700 STIGs. STIGs are deep into the machine and the operating system configuration guides. Keeping track of them is a nightmare.Ā Ā
Metis Technology Solutions works for both NASA and DOD on quality control for launch operations, among other work. Their patented invention may help their team streamline their compliance work.
The future of Pitch Days is unclear. In the age of COVID-19, these events are now virtual. Virtual events mean there is no networking among small businesses pitching solutions and government, industry, academia, venture capital, and investment communities representatives that also attended the events. There are no spontaneous meetings in the lobby of the hotel. There are no impromptu laptop demos in the halls to provide attendees with more information on a firm's capabilities. There is no energy on Zoom. Sorry.
The Air Force has raised issues about the usability, scalability, and deployability of the solutions when the Air Force funds so many projects simultaneously. For example, one Air Force press release notes that the Air Force awarded 242 SBIR contracts valued at $75 million during the week of the first Pitch Day event. How does the Air Force absorb and operationalize so many innovations from small businesses in the 120 days the vendor has to deliver their solution. The process can be especially challenging when the vendors are new to doing business with the government.
Ironically, another major concern on consuming these digital deliverables. Does this new technology meet DOD's stringent cybersecurity requirements, including those defined in the DISA STIGs?
Patents By the Numbers
On Tuesday, February 8, 2022, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued 7,187 patents. One hundred thirty-eight (138) of these patents benefitted from taxpayer funding. Here is how they break down.
One hundred twenty-seven (127) patents have Government Interest Statements.Ā
Twenty-three (23) have a government agency as an applicant or an assignee.Ā
A federal department is the only assignee on ten (10) patents.Ā
The 138 new patents have 156 department-level funding citations.Ā
These patents are the work of 498 inventors.
Ā The 480 American inventors come from 37 states and the District of Columbia.Ā
The 16 foreign inventors come from 8 countries.Ā
There are 86 patents (62%) where at least one assignee is a college or university, the HERD.Ā Ā
Nine patents (9) resulted from the collaboration between two or more universities.
Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) received nine (9) patents.Ā
Twelve (12) patents were assigned Y CPC symbols indicating that the invention may be useful in mitigating the impact of climate change.
The Big Three States ā Win, Place, and ShowĀ
The usual suspects are in the Win and Place positions. This week's patent Show position goes to Maryland.
California has 22 first-named inventors and 106 total inventors.Ā
Massachusetts has 17 first-named inventors and 64 total inventors.Ā
Maryland has nine first-named inventors and 34 total inventors.
Patent Count By Department
Count By Technology Center
There is one patent this week that was assigned to Tech Center 3900, the USPTO Re-Examination unit.
The Health Complex
The table below shows this week's count of the number of funding citations where the recipient cites the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the institutes at the National Institutes of Health, and other subagencies that are part of HHS, the Health Complex.
The Health Complex Year-To-Date
The table below is the year-to-date count for entities FedInvent classifies as part of the Health Complex.
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Next up is Thursday's newly published pre-grant patent applications.Ā
Thank you for reading FedInvent.Ā Ā
The FedInvent TeamĀ
FedInvent tells the stories of inventors, investigators, and innovators. Wayfinder Digital's FedInvent Project follows the federal innovation ecosphere, taxpayer money, and the inventions it pays for. FedInvent is a work in progress. Please reach out if you have questions or suggestions. You can reach us at info@wayfinder.digital.Ā