Top 5 Ways to Grow your Patent Portfolio in 2024

Your patent portfolio can provide a competitive advantage, attract investors, and increase company valuation. The start of a new year is a perfect time to think about growing (or creating) a patent portfolio for your company.

Here are 5 ways to expand your patent portfolio in the coming year.

  1. Be sure you identify every invention created by your team.
  2. Track all patent filing deadlines so you don’t accidentally forfeit your patent rights.
  3. Implement a customized invention evaluation process based on your company goals.
  4. Protect your highest priority inventions that will add valuable patent assets to your patent portfolio.
  5. Teach all team members to identify inventions and encourage them to submit inventions to company leaders for evaluation.

Do you need help expanding your patent portfolio in 2024? Let’s talk. Email me at steve@stevesponseller.com or schedule a complimentary call with me at https://stevesponseller.com/call

Creating Your 2024 Patent Strategy

A patent strategy is important for every tech company that invents new products or services. For example, a well-designed patent strategy cancreate a valuable patent portfolio that protects your R&D activities. Your patent portfolio can provide a competitive advantage, attract investors, and increase company valuation.

Are you ready to plan your patent strategy for 2024?

As I discuss in my book, Cracking the Patent Code, including a few simple activities in your patent strategy can produce valuable results when implemented consistently over the course of the year.

Here are seven activities to help you create a 2024 patent strategy for your organization. You don’t need to include all seven activities in your patent strategy. Consider selecting the two or three activities that are most important to your company for the coming year.

  1. Review Your Current Patent Portfolio – What inventions have you already protected? Are there any “holes” in your patent portfolio?Be sure you have protected all of your critical product features that provide a competitive edge.
  2. Identify Upcoming Patent Filing Deadlines – Look for any inventions that have been disclosed publicly or inventions contained in a product released within the last 12 months. Consider an Invention Triage™ session to identify these important deadlines.
  3. Train Your Team to Identify All Inventions – Schedule training workshops for all team members and new hires regarding how to identify inventions. Also, explain the importance of inventions to the company and highlight your invention reward program.
  4. Schedule Invention Mining Sessions for Projects Approaching Completion – An Invention Mining Session is valuable to be sure you have identified every invention in a project before it is released to the public. Then you can decide which inventions are worthy of patent protection.
  5. Review (or Create) Your Invention Evaluation Process – Do you have an invention evaluation process to review all inventions submitted by your team? If not, creating an Invention Evaluation committee is an important goal for 2024. If you already have a process to evaluate inventions, be sure you have a detailed list of evaluation factors that help prioritize the most valuable inventions to your organization.
  6. Consider an Invention Contest – If you want to create an innovation boost throughout your team, try an invention contest. This type of contest is fun, stimulates creative thinking, and helps build a culture of innovative thinking.
  7. Map Out Your Patent Strategy for 2024 – What are your top goals and activities to grow your patent portfolio in 2024? Map out those goals and activities by defining steps for each quarter of the year. Then, at the end of 2024, you will enjoy a powerful patent portfolio that provides a competitive advantage, attracts investors, and increases company valuation.

For more than 25 years, my team and I have worked with the world’s leading technology companies to build high-value patent portfolios. If you want to discuss your patent strategy for 2024, I’m happy to help you map out a plan. Contact me to schedule a complimentary call.

Email me at: steve@stevesponseller.com

Or, schedule a call at: https://stevesponseller.com/call

Your Tech Company Needs a Patent Strategist, not Just a Patent Attorney

I started working with a new client several years ago to help them build a valuable patent portfolio. They already had a few patents, but the patents were of little value. Although the patents were well-written, they did not protect inventions that were actually valuable to the company.

When preparing those patent applications, the company made a classic mistake.

They hired a patent attorney to write good patent applications for the wrong inventions. Instead of identifying all of the company’s inventions and prioritizing the most valuable inventions, the company randomly selected a few inventions for the patent attorney to protect. This is a huge mistake and a big waste of money because the most valuable inventions are often missed, so they are never protected as a business asset.

Unfortunately, I see this situation far too often. Companies send inventions to a patent attorney to prepare patent applications without first identifying and evaluating every invention created by their team.

There is a better approach.

You probably understand the importance of using patents to protect your critical inventions. But you need more than just a patent attorney to be sure you properly protect your most valuable inventions.

Although a patent attorney is important to your business, you also need a patent strategist.

Based on my experience working with hundreds of technology companies (both as a patent strategist and as a patent attorney), I know first hand how critically important it is to have a patent strategist who understands how to work with your team to identify, prioritize, and protect your best inventions.

As noted in the case above, if you rely exclusively on a patent attorney, you may miss out on protecting critical inventions because the identification and prioritization steps are often ignored. If you jump to preparing a patent application without being sure you identified and prioritized every invention, you may be wasting time and money protecting the wrong inventions.

Those low-value patents for the wrong inventions provide a false sense of security because you think your key inventions are protected. But, if you don’t protect the best inventions, your products may not have the patent protection you expect. For example, if you don’t patent your critical inventions, any competitor can use those inventions for free.

What is a Patent Strategist?

An experienced patent strategist works with teams in tech companies to identify, prioritize, and protect (with patents) the company’s highest value inventions. A patent strategist also helps design patent portfolios with high quality patents that are tailored to the company’s goals.

A patent strategist follows a successful process, such as:

  1. Identifying all inventions created by the company’s team. This is critical because you can’t prioritize or protect inventions that aren’t identified in the first place. Many inventions are hidden in the minds of team members and it takes training and discussion to extract those inventions. It’s also important to train team members how to identify inventions as part of their daily work activities so nothing slips through the cracks.
  2. Evaluating and prioritizing inventions. After identifying all inventions, the process uses evaluation criteria that’s unique to the company’s goals and objectives to evaluate and prioritize the inventions. The criteria is applied all inventions to identify the highest priority inventions to consider for patent protection.
  3. Prepare patent applications for the highest priority inventions. The top priority inventions are sent to a patent attorney who is skilled at preparing high quality patent applications. The patent attorney writes the patent applications and manages the applications through the patent examination process to obtain patents that become valuable business assets as part of the company’s patent portfolio.

The patent strategist monitors the growth of the patent portfolio to ensure that it is providing maximum value to the company and supporting the company’s goals. The objectives of the patent portfolio may change over time as the company’s goals and priorities change.

Why are Patents Important to Tech Companies?

A U.S. patent gives the owner the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the patented invention or importing it into the U.S. (35 U.S.C. 271)

When you work with a patent strategist, you will protect the most important inventions that give you:

  1. Competitive Advantage – Stop competitors from copying your critical products or product features.
  2. Attract Investors – They want to see your proprietary technology protected, so their investment is protected.
  3. Retain/Attract Key Employees – People want to work in an innovative culture that celebrates and rewards their inventions.
  4. Peace of Mind – When creating new products, you can take comfort in knowing that your patents can prevent companies from launching new products that copy your protected technology.
  5. Increase Company Valuation – Patents are business assets that can significantly increase the valuation of your company.

These are important benefits that protect your company’s R&D investment of time and money while also strengthening your team and competitive edge.

Patent Strategy Success Study

To further illustrate the importance of a patent strategist, here’s another experience I had several years ago.

I started working with a technology client when it was still in stealth mode. They were creating new technology that was changing computer systems throughout the world.

We started creating the company’s patent strategy while the company was in stealth mode. Initially, I worked with their team to identify critical inventions in the first product. We prioritized the initial inventions that were likely to provide the greatest ROI to the company and aligned with the company’s goals. Patent applications were prepared for the top five inventions based on the prioritization.

These patent applications were filed before the company came out of stealth mode to protect their core technology and preserve international patent rights.

After the company publicly announced it’s new product, the initial product continued to expand and provide additional features. As the product grew, we continued to identify and evaluate new inventions. Additional patent applications were filed to protect the most important inventions related to the new product features.

As the company’s team grew, we continued to train new team members how to identify and evaluate inventions. We also implemented invention mining sessions, invention contests, and other activities to be sure every invention was identified throughout the company.

An invention evaluation committee was formed and defined 11 invention evaluation factors to consider when evaluating new inventions.These evaluation factors were based on the company’s goals, growth plans, exit strategy, and other criteria. The invention evaluation committee met regularly to evaluate new inventions using the company’s evaluation factors.

Over time, the company continued to expand their products and create new inventions. The new inventions were identified and evaluated to select the most valuable inventions for patent protection.

By the time the company was approaching an IPO (Initial Public Offering), their patent portfolio had grown to over 40 patent assets. The IPO was successful with a valuation greater than $2B.

What to Look for in a Patent Strategist

Now that you know the importance of a patent strategist to your tech company, how do you find the right person to help your team identify the most valuable inventions that create a strong patent portfolio? Here’s what to look for:

  • Experience with training teams to identify every invention created.
  • Knowledge and understanding of your company’s technology.
  • Understands how to help companies set up and implement invention evaluation committees.
  • Experienced at designing valuable patent portfolios that align with company goals, protect company growth, and support significant company valuation for IPOs, acquisitions, and other events.
  • Knowledgeable about working with patent attorneys to prepare high quality patent applications.

Does your business want to ensure that every invention is identified and evaluated so you build a patent portfolio of high value assets that align with your company goals?

If yes, I would be happy to talk with you.

Let’s schedule a call at: https://calendly.com/steve-sponseller/20

New Lawsuit Provides Important Reminder to Protect your Critical Space Tech Innovations

Based on a recent lawsuit, Wilson Aerospace alleges that Boeing stole their space tech intellectual property. The lawsuit alleges that Wilson Aerospace may have lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the stolen IP.

This lawsuit is an important reminder for all space tech companies to ensure that their critical inventions are protected before engaging with any company (especially large corporations) that may try to steal their proprietary technology.

In my 25 years of experience, I’ve seen this happen far too often. When companies delay the protection of their inventions and other intellectual property, it may be too late to fix that mistake when a competitor copies or steals their unique innovations.

Did you know that if you wait too long, you may actually lose the opportunity to protect your intellectual property? In many instances, there are patent filing deadlines that can prevent you from protecting your critical inventions. If you let this happen, that means your competitors can actually use those inventions for free in their own products.

In other words, you essentially donated your R&D time and expenses to your competitors!

Let this latest lawsuit encourage you to take action today and protect your most valuable inventions. This is a modest investment that can make your company significantly stronger and more valuable in the future.

Every tech company is busy these days. Protecting your intellectual property is often an afterthought or something you’re putting off until “tomorrow.”

Don’t do this.

Protecting your inventions will provide a competitive advantage, attract investors, and increase your company valuation. Showing your team the importance of their innovative ideas (by protecting them) can also stimulate more innovative thinking and even better products.

Do you have questions about how to identify and protect your most valuable inventions? If so, I can help.

I’m offering complimentary 20-minute strategy calls to help you determine what you need to be aware of regarding your company’s inventions or patents. I will answer any questions and provide suggestions for identifying and protecting inventions created by your team.

Schedule a Free strategy call with me at: https://calendly.com/steve-sponseller/20

Note: I don’t have any information about this case other than what’s in the public lawsuit filing. I’m not affiliated with either company involved in the lawsuit.

See a full news report regarding the litigation at CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/07/wilson-aerospace-sues-boeing-over-allegedly-stole-ip-for-nasa-projects.html

Don’t Let a Corporate Bully Destroy your Tech Startup

Robert and I had been working on a new project for barely a month when I received a frantic phone call from him.

“We’ve been sued for patent infringement by Acme!”

Acme was a large corporation with very deep pockets. This was Robert’s worst nightmare — a potentially deadly lawsuit right after starting his new job with the company.

Note: The company names and product names have been changed to protect the actual parties involved in the litigation.

I started working with Robert’s company (Awesome Corporation) a month before that phone call. Awesome was growing quickly and getting rave reviews of its new line of flux capacitors. Many satisfied customers were enjoying excellent results using the capacitors.

Awesome had a great team of creative people who were regularly developing innovative ideas that created a “buzz” in the industry. These ideas set the Awesome’s flux capacitors apart from the competitors and saved its customers time and money.

Based on the company’s growth trajectory, they were expanding and capturing more market share each quarter. Their innovative capacitors offered features that the older, well-established competitors did not offer. Things were going great.

Identifying, Developing, and Protecting Inventions

Robert was the VP of Product Development. He contacted me to help build a patent portfolio and develop a system for identifying, developing, and protecting the company’s most valuable inventions.

A patent portfolio is a collection of patents. These business assets are intangible, but provide significant value and protection to the owner. A well-crafted patent portfolio can protect a company’s core technologies and key product features, which provides a barrier to competitors who want to copy those technologies or features.

Robert’s Nightmare

Robert’s voice was trembling when he called me.

But the nightmare was even worse because Awesome had no patents. That meant they had virtually no intellectual property and no negotiating power to try to settle the lawsuit by cross-licensing patent assets. Acme likely targeted them because of their lack of patents.

Awesome had recently gone public with a successful Initial Public Offering. Robert was terrified…

“How are we going to explain this huge liability to all of the shareholders?”

It didn’t take long for Awesome to start receiving calls from its customers, “What’s this lawsuit about. Acme called us and said we may have to stop using the flux capacitors we purchased because they infringe Acme’s patents.”

“What are you doing to fix this?”

Robert also had to handle questions from the sales team and prospective customers who were justifiably concerned about buying Awesome’s capacitors with the dark cloud hanging over the company. With the pending lawsuit, it was next to impossible to sell capacitors.

“Call us after the litigation is settled,” was the usual response to sales inquiries.

Surviving the Litigation

In an effort to save the company, its leaders hired a litigation firm and got to work preparing a strategy to deal with the lawsuit. Awesome’s leaders set aside most other projects so they could focus on this critical problem.

To create bargaining power with Acme, Awesome spent several million dollars to acquire some existing patents in an effort to negotiate a settlement. Since Awesome had not been protecting their inventions and did not have an existing patent portfolio, they were starting from scratch.

Fortunately, the acquired patents helped with the settlement negotiations. Eventually, the lawsuit was settled — which cost several million dollars on top of the cost to acquire the patents. And, some significant legal fees on top of everything else.

In addition to these tangible costs, many of the company’s activities came to a screeching halt until the litigation was resolved. These immeasurable costs had a huge impact on Awesome’s financial situation.

Robert, and Awesome, survived the litigation. But it took years to recover financially and to regain their customers’ (and potential customers’) trust.

Finally, millions of dollars later, building an patent strategy became a top priority.

Believe it or not, Awesome was Lucky!

This type of lawsuit would have destroyed many smaller companies. If Awesome didn’t have the financial ability to fight the lawsuit, it would have been like a big bad wolf devouring three little pigs living in a worn-out tent.

Patent litigation is complex and costly. If you don’t have funds available for a patent litigation attorney, you can’t even fight back.

Before filing a lawsuit, the big bad wolf does its due diligence to find the weakest victim. “Find me some little company with no patents and minimal cash. We will make an example of them.” After the wolf wipes out the first victim, it has set a precedent and can coerce other victims to give up or pay a hefty licensing fee to settle the litigation.

Sadly, this situation was avoidable — or at least could have had a much smaller impact on Awesome.

How to Build A Strong Patent Portfolio

If Awesome had taken action a few years earlier, for a small fraction of the millions they paid, they could have developed a valuable patent portfolio that might have caused Acme to target someone else. Awesome could have upgraded from a tent to a brick house.

With a strong patent portfolio, even if Awesome was sued, the company would have been in a much stronger position to negotiate a better settlement and reduce the disruption to the company’s operations and customer relationships.

In the past 25 years, I have worked with many companies who were negligent in taking steps to protect the inventions that set their products apart from the competitors. These companies believed that they were a group of good, creative people and they deserved to be successful.

“We are constantly creating new ideas, so we don’t need to worry about protecting our inventions.” Wrong.

It could happen to you too.

You have worked hard to assemble a team of talented people who create great products and give your company an advantage in the marketplace. If you fail to protect your key product features, and ignore building a valuable patent portfolio, it’s going to come back to bite you.

Action Steps: Take the important steps today to identify all of the inventions contained in your company’s products. Then, take action to protect your most valuable inventions.

Need Help with your Patent Strategy?

If you don’t have a Patent Strategy, or you want to expand your existing strategy, I can help.

Apply for a complimentary InventLock™ Strategy Call today. During this session, we will review your current Patent Strategy, explore your business goals and challenges, and create a plan for where to go next.

Apply for your free InventLock™ Strategy call at: https://stevesponseller.com/strategy/

How Well-Designed Patent Portfolios Protect Your R&D Investment

Your R&D (Research & Development) team invests significant time, money, and effort creating new systems. These systems often contain valuable inventions that provide a competitive advantage, attract investors, and increase company valuation.

Your entire R&D investment is wasted if you don’t have a strategy to build a patent portfolio that protects your critical inventions.

Patents protect the inventions produced by your R&D activities. A well-designed patent portfolio is a carefully chosen collection of patent assets that support your business goals and objectives.

Failing to protect your most valuable inventions with a patent portfolio means that your R&D team is working for your competitors. Without patent protection for your critical inventions, your competitors are free to use your inventions to compete against you without having to invest any time, money, or resources.

Don’t let this happen to your tech company.

Over the past 25 years working with hundreds of technology companies, we have developed a strategy for designing patent portfolios that protect your R&D investment. Our strategy:

  • identifies every invention created by your team (even the ones hidden in the minds of your team)
  • evaluates the inventions to prioritize the ones with the highest value to your company
  • protects your critical inventions that produce a high-value patent portfolio

When you implement this strategy, your company will build a patent portfolio that provides a competitive advantage, attracts investors, and increases company valuation. This protects your inventions and lets you decide whether to allow others to use those inventions.

Here’s a summary of the 3-step strategy that has created dozens of high-value patent portfolios.

Identify

The first step in building a valuable patent portfolio is to identify all of your company’s inventions. You can’t take steps to protect or evaluate your inventions if you don’t identify them in the first place.

Improve your company’s chances for success by encouraging innovative ideas and creating a steady flow of new inventions from your team. You can do this by training your team members how to identify inventions. Some techniques for identifying inventions include invention mining, invention contests, and fun brainstorming sessions.

It’s also important to provide a simple system for your team members to submit their inventions. Company leaders are often surprised by the gold nuggets of innovation hidden within the minds of their team members. You need a system to identify these valuable innovations.

In one example, our client in the communication industry had a large team of developers and engineers. But the company only had one patent after being in business for five years. Using our system, we quickly identified 11 inventions that their team members had created but didn’t realize they were inventions. By implementing several invention mining activities and brainstorming sessions, we identified another six inventions that had not been identified.

After evaluating those 17 inventions using the process discussed below, the company filed five patent applications to protect the most valuable inventions. This was the start of building a valuable patent portfolio that protects their R&D investment.

Evaluate

To create a high-value patent portfolio, it’s important to properly evaluate and prioritize all of the inventions identified by your team. I’ve seen too many companies ignore this crucial step and end up spending time and money preparing patent applications for mediocre inventions. The strength and quality of your patent portfolio depends on a thorough evaluation of all inventions.

The first step in evaluating your team’s inventions is creating an invention evaluation committee that includes people who perform different roles in the company. People with a diversity of roles will have unique perspectives regarding the potential value of an invention, the cost to develop and produce the invention, and whether the invention is consistent with the company’s goals.

When we help companies create an invention evaluation committee, we typically include people from the following groups: executive, engineering/technical, sales, marketing, and customer service.

After creating the invention evaluation committee, the company defines invention evaluation criteria that is consistent with the company’s goals, growth plans, and other factors. Example invention evaluation criteria may include:

  • feasibility of the invention
  • must-have feature
  • company goals (long-term and short-term)
  • company’s exit strategy
  • potential patentability problems
  • lifetime value of invention to company
  • defensive value (protect against litigation)
  • potential licensing value

The evaluation criteria is applied to each invention to prioritize the inventions that have the highest value to the company. By carefully evaluating your inventions with respect to your company goals and objectives, you are designing a valuable patent portfolio that protects your critical assets.

When working with one of our clients that designs and builds data storage systems, their goal was to build a valuable portfolio of patent assets to support their planned initial public offering (IPO). The client was going to be competing with some large, well-established companies in their industry. For this client, the evaluation process focused on inventions that provided a competitive advantage as well as inventions that could be asserted against competitors, if necessary.

The client designed and built a patent portfolio that included 42 assets at the time of filing for their IPO. This portfolio supported a very successful IPO for the company because they had strategically designed a high-value patent portfolio that gave them a powerful position in their industry.

Protect

To protect your R&D investment, you must build a patent portfolio that includes your most valuable inventions. Protecting the wrong inventions is a waste of time and money. Patents covering the wrong inventions are dangerous because they give you a false sense of security. For example, a patent portfolio with a large number of patents may seem valuable, but if those patents have minimal value, they are not likely to provide the protection and value you anticipate.

As you build your patent portfolio, it’s important to include inventions that cover four key categories:

  • core technology
  • critical must-have product features
  • future inventions
  • defensive inventions

Patents covering these four categories will collectively provide a barrier to entry for competitors and broadly protect your R&D investment.

These four categories are important because protecting core technology and must-have product features provide a competitive advantage by preventing others from using those inventions in competing products. You can significantly increase the value of your patent portfolio by protecting future inventions, such as inventions that will be essential in the future systems. Your team can develop these future inventions by looking at current industry trends and creating solutions to problems that will likely result from those trends.

Defensive inventions can be valuable by protecting against aggressive competitors. Patents covering defensive inventions reduce the likelihood of litigation and provide a cross-licensing opportunity if litigation occurs.

You have worked hard to assemble a team of talented people who create innovative products and give your company an advantage in the marketplace. Protect that investment in your team by protecting your core technology, critical must-have features, future inventions, and defensive inventions.

Protecting Large R&D Investments

Here are two examples of clients we worked with to protect large R&D investments by adding significant assets to their patent portfolio.

In one example, an automotive manufacturer wanted to expand into a new area related to autonomous vehicles. They were aware of several significant competitors and they were hiring a team of developers and scientists with advanced degrees. To protect their substantial R&D expense and defend against competitors, this client knew a well-designed patent portfolio was critical.

We assisted the client in cultivating inventions developed throughout their team, evaluating those inventions, and protecting the inventions with the highest value to the company. Over the course of several years, we expanded the size of their patent portfolio by more than 300 patent assets (issued patents and pending patent applications).

In another example, a client that makes inventory management systems was launching into a new online market. The new market included a large, well-established competitor. This client understood the importance of a strong patent portfolio to protect their competitive advantage and fend off the well-established competitor.

We worked with the client to protect all of their important inventions that secured their proprietary technology and must-have features that the competitor might want to copy. That client increased their patent portfolio by more than 500 patent assets, which provided strong protection against the competitor. Those patent assets protected the R&D investment in the new online systems and significantly increased the valuation of the company.

Conclusion

In many countries, it takes 2-3 years from filing a patent application to issuance of the patent. You can’t build a patent portfolio overnight unless you purchase patents that have already issued.

So, you need to get started designing your patent portfolio today.

My team and I have helped many companies implement the 3-step system described in this article. Those companies have valuable and expanding patent portfolios.

This system will work for your company too.

If you have an R&D department, I encourage you to schedule a free strategy call with me as soon as possible. During our strategy call, we will discuss your current situation and identify your most important next steps to protect your R&D investment.

Schedule your free strategy call at: https://calendly.com/steve-sponseller/20

Contact Steve with questions at: steve@stevesponseller.com

Building Space Foundries to Enable the Next Industrial Revolution– Joe Pawelski


Can your company benefit from rapid iteration techniques and simulation to quickly develop successful products?

This interview is part of the Space Tech Innovation event where Space Tech Leaders share the latest trends and key insights to grow any tech company. The event is Free – you can register at https://SpaceTechInnovation.com to see all the videos, edited transcripts, and an executive summary of each interview.

Today I’m talking with Joe Pawelski, who is the Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder of CisLunar Industries.

Joe and the team at CisLunar Industries are building and operating space foundries to enable the next industrial revolution. In particular, he works with in-space metal processing and space debris recycling.

Joe has a passion for figuring out things people say are impossible. Some of the projects he and the CisLunar team are working on include things that might seem impossible, like turning space debris into propellants and other useful materials. And, doing this in orbit, not on Earth.

During our discussion, Joe talks about how to test and simulate these projects on earth during the design process. He also discusses rapid iteration techniques that can be used when developing these types of systems.

Joe shares lots of valuable information and I know you will find valuable insights you can apply in your own tech business.

“We believe that abundant resources in space are a good way to sustain humanity. We think of ourselves as a sustainable company that’s looking out for the earth.” – Joe Pawelski (CTO of CisLunar Industries)

Today on the Tech Leader Talk podcast:

  • Creating metal propellants from space debris
  • How to recycle space debris while in orbit
  • Rapid iteration techniques to build better products
  • What is ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization)
  • Designing and building space foundries

Connect with Hunter Williams:

Thanks for listening!

Be sure to get your free copy of Steve’s latest book, Cracking the Patent Code, and discover his proven system for identifying and protecting your most valuable inventions. Get the book at https://stevesponseller.com/book.

Test Strategies that Create Robust Space Systems– Hunter Williams


Would you like to discover test strategies used by experienced space tech development teams to create cutting edge systems?

This interview is part of the Space Tech Innovation event where Space Tech Leaders share the latest trends and key insights to grow any tech company. The event is Free – you can register at https://SpaceTechInnovation.com to see all the videos, edited transcripts, and an executive summary of each interview.

Today I am talking with Hunter Williams. He is a specialist in space resource utilization, planetary surface technology development, partnership management, and space system design. In his current work, he is helping to build a lunar infrastructure.

During our interview, Hunter discusses various types of robotic systems, such as Mars vehicles and exploration systems. He also shares information about lunar arrays, lunar power systems, and a lunar electrical grid.

I’m sure you will enjoy this discussion and get some valuable insights about innovation and designing systems that can operate in harsh environments, such as the surface of the moon.

“You never really know until you test. That’s why we start testing early in the design process.” – Hunter Williams (Lunar Infrastructure Specialist)

Today on the Tech Leader Talk podcast:

  • Lessons learned from designing space exploration systems
  • What is the “lunar economy”?
  • Obstacles when creating planetary surface robotics
  • Current projects for lunar power systems
  • The NASA Tech Flights program for economical testing

Connect with Hunter Williams:

Thanks for listening!

Be sure to get your free copy of Steve’s latest book, Cracking the Patent Code, and discover his proven system for identifying and protecting your most valuable inventions. Get the book at https://stevesponseller.com/book.

Launching Your Business or Career Into the Space Industry– Laura Forczyk


Are you ready to expand your business or career into the space industry?

This interview is part of the Space Tech Innovation event where Space Tech Leaders share the latest trends and key insights to grow any tech company. The event is Free – you can register at https://SpaceTechInnovation.com to see all the videos, edited transcripts, and an executive summary of each interview.

Today I have the pleasure of talking with Laura Forczyk. She’s the Founder and Executive Director of Astralytical, which is a space consulting firm. Laura guides businesses and government entities to grow in the exciting and fast-paced space sector.

Laura is passionate about spaceflight and the entire space industry. She has a broad expertise spanning science, technology, exploration, and public policy – which gives her a unique perspective.

During our interview, Laura discusses opportunities for non-space companies to expand into the space industry. She also shares information about the many space-related jobs that don’t require STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) degrees.

I know you will enjoy this discussion and get some valuable insights about the space industry and how you might be able to play a role in that industry.

“Every tech company has some kind of link to the space industry, they just don’t know it yet.” – Laura Forczyk (Founder and Executive Director of Astralytical)

Today on the Tech Leader Talk podcast:

  • Space-related jobs (not just STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)
  • Suborbital transportation opportunities
  • How space technology is helping people on earth
  • Opportunities for non-space companies to expand or reposition into the space industry
  • Increasing diversity in the space sector

Books:

Connect with Laura Forczyk:

Thanks for listening!

Be sure to get your free copy of Steve’s latest book, Cracking the Patent Code, and discover his proven system for identifying and protecting your most valuable inventions. Get the book at https://stevesponseller.com/book.

Launch or Grow Your Company with NASA’s Patented Inventions– Daniel Lockney


Did you know that NASA has patented inventions ready for you to license and commercialize?

This interview is part of the Space Tech Innovation event where Space Tech Leaders share the latest trends and key insights to grow any tech company. The event is Free – you can register at https://SpaceTechInnovation.com to see all the videos, edited transcripts, and an executive summary of each interview.

On this episode of the podcast, I am talking with Dan Lockney.

I’m excited about this episode because Dan and I talk about a fantastic program from NASA for technology companies.

Dan is the Technology Transfer Program Executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He is responsible for managing NASA’s intellectual property and the transfer of NASA technology to promote the commercialization and public availability of NASA’s patented inventions.

Dan and I discuss how NASA’s Technology Transfer Program operates and the types of companies that can license the technology. Here’s a small spoiler: any size of company can license the technology – from startups to large corporations. And, you will be surprised at the cost of the license!

Dan shares information about the motivation behind the Technology Transfer Program. He also discusses some of his favorite inventions that have been successfully commercialized.

NASA has a publication called “Spinoff” that highlights many types of transferred technologies that benefit life on Earth in the form of commercial products. NASA recently published a new edition of the Spinoff publication. It has dozens of stories describing businesses that have successfully launched products based on technology licensed from NASA. There’s a link to the Spinoff publication below.

Why is this program exciting to me? As you may know, as a Patent Strategist I work with tech companies every day regarding patents and inventions. This Technology Transfer Program is a great opportunity to license patented NASA technology to launch a business or a new product line.

I encourage you to listen to this episode and see if the Technology Transfer Program is a good option for your business.

“The Spinoff publication was created to let everyone know about the Technology Transfer Program and show the results of NASA’s research and development activities.” – Daniel Lockney

Today on the Tech Leader Talk podcast:

  • How does the NASA Technology Transfer Program work
  • Program success stories
  • The motivation behind the Technology Transfer Program
  • Types of technologies contained in the patented inventions
  • How a team of NASA engineers designed a new low-cost ventilator in response to the Covid outbreak

Resources:

Connect with Daniel Lockney:

Thanks for listening!

Be sure to get your free copy of Steve’s latest book, Cracking the Patent Code, and discover his proven system for identifying and protecting your most valuable inventions. Get the book at https://stevesponseller.com/book.

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