The Department of Energy has announced updated information about its new, expanded Web portal devoted to commercializing technology related to energy. Formally, the portal is entitled Energy Innovation Portal, Linking Energy Technologies with Market Opportunities.
One major emphasis is patent licensing (or more generally, technology transfer, and one can search a database of patent literature and technology marketing summaries for licensing opportunities. Success stories are noted in the portal, along with upcoming events such as the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, to be held February 28 – March 2 in Washington DC. In briefly looking through the portal, I easily found several interesting video presentations (e.g., OLED lighting and thin film solar). Apparently, there are 312 “Technology Marketing Summaries,” 11,677 patents, and 3,523 patent applications to search. With practice, this searching will become easier. When I searched “nanotechnology,” I found only154 patent documents and only three marketing summaries. When I shortened to “nano,” the results expanded considerably to 860 patent documents and 13 marketing summaries.
Emphasis is also on DOE “partners” and laboratories as opposed to DOE funding of research at universities and companies.
Hopefully, the site will be useful to the public and business and expanded in response to user experience. Success stories related to “exits”- e.g., IPOs and mega dollar acquisitions – are of particular interest.