Omicron Slowed Us Down
FedInvent Patent Application Newsletter for January 13, 2022
Hello from FedInvent,
FedInvent has had Omicron moments this week. The week started with tracking down unfindable test kits for an elderly relative who turned out to have a cold. Next, we had little kids on the East Coast and in the Heartland being very sad because they were being tested over and over again so they could go to daycare with masks on. Next up, finding out that the KN95 masks we bought for $44 in October are now selling for $84. It took hitting three grocery stores to find bananas. In the meantime, we were working on the usual technical issues that come up when switching from one year to another. Then there's sam.gov. It took HOURS to update Wayfinder Digital's registration because sam.gov decided to ditch using the DUNS number and transition to a new entity identification number. All this made us grumpy and unproductive. And we got behind schedule in writing the newsletter.
Today we're sticking to the numbers for the FedInvent application newsletter so we can start fresh with Tuesday's patents and get things back on track. (Unless CDC requires another booster…)
Here are the links to the FedInvent Patent Report for patent applications published on January 13, 2022, and the Details Page that lets you browse by department.
Applications By The Numbers
This week USPTO published 7,718 pre-grant patent applications. One hundred sixty-nine (169) benefitted from taxpayer funding. Here are the numbers for the 169 patents.
One hundred sixty-five (165) patent applications have Government Interest Statements.
Twenty-six (26) have an applicant or an assignee that is a government agency.
A federal department is the only assignee on ten applications.
The 169 new patents have 195 department-level funding citations.
These patents are the work of 632 inventors.
The 600 American inventors come from 37 states and the District of Columbia.
The 32 foreign inventors come from 15 countries.
There are 111 applications (66%) where at least one assignee is a college or university, the HERD.
Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) received 12 patents.
Two (2) patents were assigned Y CPC symbols indicating that the invention may be useful in mitigating the impact of climate change.
The Big Three States:
California has 33 first-named inventors and 126 total inventors.
Massachusetts has 25 first-named inventors and 90 total inventors.
Illinois has nine (9) first-named inventors and 42 total inventors.
The Non-Scofflaw Scofflaw
This Thursday's Government Acknowledged patent is from Sky Launch Corporation, 20220009633, "System and Method for Carrying an
Aeronautical or Launch Vehicle to Altitude for Release to Flight." The government interest section cites work done by federal employees. The inventors worked for NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center. Mr. Budd is the President & CEO of Sky Launch Corporation and the inventor of the Towed Glider Air Launch System, a NASA-developed technology (US Patent 9944410) for launching payloads into space that NASA is transitioning to the commercial sector. We'll add this one to our NASA list.
There are still no Raytheon scofflaw appearances for 2022.
Application Count By Department
The Health Complex
The table below shows 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.
About The Patent Application Data
FedInvent is working on adding year-to-date counts to the FedInvent Reports. We are looking under every rock to find taxpayer-funded patents and patent applications and ensure our data is usable, actionable, accurate, cross-referenced, and up-to-date. Patent application data is a special beast.
Pre-grant published patent applications tend to be more informational than an accurate representation of who owns what and which agencies funded the R&D. Patent application metadata about assignees, contracts, and inventors is fluid at best. Inventors from universities are the applicant. By the time the patent is granted, the patent is assigned to the University. Applications start with government agencies as the applicant or assignee, and by the time the patent is granted, the assignee is the agency and a company, the agency, and a university, or a combination of inventors, agencies, and companies.
There's a lot to learn from how the application's bibliographic data changes over time.
There are patents with no government interest statement when the application is published. There are also taxpayer-funded patents applications that are published more than once. The first time without a government interest statement, the government interest statement miraculously appears by the second publication. For example, on Thursday, 20220008429, "Treating Influenza Using Substituted Polyclic Pyridone Derivatives and Prodrugs Thereof In a Subject Having Influenza and a Severe Influenza Condition," had a government interest statement. There was no government interest statement in its earlier September 2020 appearance as publication number 20200297731.
The contract number for this application leads to an almost totally redacted contract with Genentech (Roche) that tracks back to the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). It's a COVID-19 related contract.
So application data and counts for applications can get a little funky. The FedInvent team works to get is as accurate as the data trail lets us.
That's it for Thursday's patent applications.
Please explore the FedInvent Patent Application Report. It's an essential addition to your newsletter subscription.
If you'd like to catch up on earlier FedInvent Reports, you can access the newsletters here on Substack. In addition, the reports are available on the FedInvent Links page.
If you aren't a paid subscriber yet, please consider subscribing. It will help us keep going in 2022 to keep digging into what our tax dollars are funding.
As always, we thank you for reading FedInvent.
The FedInvent Team
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.