Link-O-Matic One
FedInvent Newsletter for March 29 and 31, 2022
Hello from FedInvent,
This week and next we’ll be sending out a shorter newsletter. The FedInvent team is busy analyzing the federal patent and patent application data to take a deeper look at how the first quarter of 2022 shaped up in the federal innovation ecosphere.
We’re also analyzing the patents and patent applications coming from the country’s federally funded research and development centers, the National Labs. We are looking at the patents and applications from the national labs as well as the patents and apps they funded.
We’ve been working on some website housekeeping to improve our reporting and our data.
So this week we’ll stick with providing you the links to the FedInvent reports and the pages on the FedInvent website at Wayfinder Digital.
The Link-O-Matic
Here are the links to the FedInvent Report pages for March 29th and 31st:
March 29th’s Patents
FedInvent Report —> LINK
FedInvent Details By Department —> LINK
Health Complex Patents Year-To-Date —> LINK
The Patent Office issued 7,200 patents on Tuesday. One hundred eighty-two (182) benefitted from taxpayer funding. These patents cited 201 funding sources.
It was a slow Tuesday for patents assigned to Higher Education R&D (HERD) entities. Colleges, universities, and university-affiliated research institutes received only 85 patents, only 47% of the total.
You can see the rest of the Patents By the Numbers on the FedInvent Report page.
March 31st’s Patent Applications
Thursday the USPTO published 8,899 pre-grant patent applications. Two hundred eleven (211) were funded by US taxpayers. These patent applications had 231 department funding citations.
Colleges, universities, and academic research institutes added 137 new applications to their IP pipelines, 65% of the total federally funded patent apps on March 31st. FFRDCs funded 34 patent applications. Twenty-seven are from the labs. The rest, seven were funded by the labs and are assigned to other entities.
FedInvent Report —> LINK
FedInvent Details By Department —> LINK
Health Complex Patent Applications Year-To-Date —> LINK
Bayh-Dole Scofflaws
There are three Bayh-Dole scofflaws this week. Two from Raytheon. A patent on Tuesday for gas turbine technology (the usual) and an application on Thursday for an additive manufacturing invention. IBM, an organization that certainly knows how to write patent applications, had a content-free government interest statement on its patent application for new semiconductor technology.
There is a semi-scofflaw patent application from an aerospace engineer and a computer scientist at the Federal Aviation Administration. We need to confirm the details before we move it over into the DOT column. (We’ll update the report accordingly.)
Their application, 20220101736, "Robust Techniques for the Collection and Management of Data from Data Sources in an Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Operations Environment," looks like a precursor to serious air traffic controls over an increasing universe of disparate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. First you have to manage all that data.
If you are a public science policy wonk, this is a good patent to read. The application includes an overview of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) commitment to integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS). This commitment is in response to the current trend of UAS use in commercial, public, and private sectors as well as the forecasted tremendous demand for comprehensive UAS utilization across all domains within the NAS. The application was filed in September 2021 so the policy discussion is timely.
One More Patent
The US Postal Service has a new invention this week for a Chute Lockout Device. The patent application notes that "Distribution networks, such as the United States Postal Service (USPS) use collection boxes or item receptacles to allow senders to deposit items for induction into the distribution network. The item receptacles can include an opening in the shape of a narrow slot or chute through which items, such as individual packages, envelopes, flats, parcels, or other items, can be inserted into the item receptacle. A distribution network may desire to close the opening of an item receptacle for a variety of reasons."
Looks like an upgrade to the utilitarian mailbox is coming our way. It’s a very detailed application for a mechanical invention. Their IP is safe. We doubt that the miscreants that try to steal things out of mailboxes read patents.
Useful Pages
We also updated the FedInvent archive page to make it easier to find older reports and Substack FedInvent Newsletters. You can go to the 2022 page here. The 2021 archive is here.
We’ve also been updating our Messages from Ukraine page. The pace of the messages is slowing down as the war is making communication harder for some of our correspondents. We publish this information to add to the record of how regular Ukrainians are dealing with the events unfolding at the hands of the Russians.
As always, please let us know if you have questions about our data or our analysis, you can reach us at info@wayfinder.digital.
We’re hoping to have the FedInvent Q1 Roundup out soon.
Thanks for reading FedInvent. See you later this week.
FedInvent
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.