SBIR-STTR Award

The innovation aims to develop a patent-valuation system that considers the totality of a United States patent's ?prior-art? patent-citations. Using network mathematics of eigenvector centrality, a patent's intrinsic value is calculated based on recursively weighting associations between a patent and other patents (its backward and forward citations). This methodology establishes the values of the patents relative to each other so we have a uniform evaluation standard for all patents in the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). This algorithm has the potential to bring order to the patent-valuation problem. At a particular point in time, every patent within the entire universe of United States patents receives a score which can be ranked in a myriad of ways, such as: within a respective patent portfolio (a firm portfolio, an inventor portfolio, a patent-agent portfolio), within a technology classification (e.g., 705/310: DATA PROCESSING/Intellectual Property Management), universally within the entire network, and so on. Monitoring the diffusion of a patent's marginal score over time (i.e., a patent's Schumpeterian shock) also makes it possible to predict a potential lifetime value of a patent.

The broader/commercial impact of this project is to develop an objective metric for the value of patent innovations (i.e., to deliver transparent and objective patent-network dynamics and in the long term become like the credit-rating FICO® score for patents). The successful completion of this project would provide additional tools and products for those engaged in intellectual-property management, specifically the patent holders and other organizations that strive to estimate a patent's current and potential value. This meta-innovation about technology will benefit all facets of commercialization ecosystems, including: identification of viable entrepreneurial opportunities, assessment of internal/external technological venturing, evaluation of patent-assertion prospects, and overall management of radical innovations.