DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions created the Visual Intellectual Property Search database, known as VIPS, to make it easier to perform intellectual property searches and find new technologies developed at DOE’s 17 National Laboratories and several additional DOE plants and sites.
Office of Technology Transitions
July 31, 2024
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More than 20,000 inventions and software packages available for exploration and licensing
Thousands of the treasures developed by scientists working for the Department of Energy—ideas, methods and software created to address some of the world’s biggest challenges—are now available in one place for entrepreneurs, researchers and others interested in learning more and developing them for commercialization.
DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) has created the Visual Intellectual Property Search database, known as VIPS, to make it easier to perform intellectual property searches and find new technologies developed at DOE’s 17 National Laboratories and several additional DOE plants and sites. The database contains information on thousands of patents issued for research conducted by DOE scientists and engineers, as well as more than 6,200 available software packages.
The system is designed to increase the real-world impact of thousands of research projects undertaken by DOE employees and its contractors. Nearly all of the research featured in VIPS is available for licensing or open-source use.
“VIPS bridges the gap between groundbreaking research and practical application, allowing for faster and more efficient commercialization of technologies developed at our National Laboratories, plants, and sites,” said OTT Deputy Director of Commercialization Programs Victor Kane. “We’re grateful to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for delivering this resource and making decades of DOE research accessible to innovators who can turn these discoveries into real-world solutions.”
The database, officially launched July 31, draws primarily on two sources: patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and DOE CODE, a repository of software maintained by the U.S. Office of Scientific and Technical Information. VIPS draws on those sources to make updates each week.
Intellectual property searches made easy
VIPS comes with robust search and filtering features for users searching for technologies to advance in the marketplace. One can search a broad area, such as “energy” or “sensors.” Or a more specific search can be conducted—within “energy,” for example, “energy storage” and then “hydrogen energy storage” or “thermal energy storage.” A search on thermal energy storage, for example, currently pulls up 152 patents and seven software packages—numbers that will climb as more intellectual property is entered into VIPS. Ultimately the system breaks down DOE technologies into about 800 categories.
The system can be searched and filtered in many other ways, including by type of intellectual property and by DOE entity. A search of any national lab quickly turns up the names of scientists involved with the most patents or software, areas of research with the most entries, the timing of the lab’s patent applications, and the programming languages most often used in available software,
The system also includes an extensive taxonomy, suggesting related scientific terms or disciplines—offering both specific and broad views of affiliated technologies that might be of interest. Links to the laboratory where the invention was created, as well as the relevant commercialization contact, are also included.
The database was funded by the Base Annual Appropriated Technology Commercialization Fund, managed by OTT. VIPS was developed by data scientists and commercialization managers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), working closely with counterparts across the country as well as DOE. Tradespace, a firm specializing in the management of intellectual property, helped develop the VIPS taxonomy, assuring that VIPS would be as useful as possible to the private sector.
Scott Dowson, a software engineer at PNNL, served as lead developer of VIPS. Dowson’s team was chosen to tackle the project because of its expertise in human centered-computing, advanced AI, and large language models. Those strengths contribute to a platform that helps users find connections to relevant technologies easier and faster.
“For this project, a tiered patent categorization system was created from the bottom up, enabling VIPS to develop a particular way of searching and visualizing DOE software and patents beyond a simple keyword search,” said Dowson.
The rollout of VIPS comes 234 years to the day since the first U.S. patent was granted to Samuel Hopkins in 1790. That patent was for a process to make potash, an ingredient used in fertilizer. Research inventions related to energy continue to be essential and are featured prominently in VIPS.
The patents issued to DOE National Laboratories, plants, and sites were available previously through a portal known as the Visual Patent Search. VIPS offers several improvements—easier usability, a more robust search function, a more sophisticated taxonomy of science areas, and most notably, the addition of more than 6,200 software packages. This is the first time the software offerings have been gathered in one location.
There are some limitations. Classified technologies are not included in the database, and some of the technologies that are included may have already been licensed, though oftentimes arrangements can be made to accommodate potential new licensees.
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