ARLINGTON, Va.—A system that tests the strength of fire truck equipment in an environmentally friendly way is one of 396 technologies patented by the U.S. Navy in 2013— helping the service lead the government category in an annual ranking of patent portfolios recently published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
For the sixth consecutive year, the U.S. Department of the Navy (DON) eclipsed government agencies around the world for the size and quality of its collection of patents in IEEE Spectrum Magazine’s 2014 Patent Power Scorecard . The scorecard rates the strength of the patent portfolios in organizations across a range of industrial sectors. The Navy has held the top spot since the scorecard added the government category in 2008.
“The Navy’s success in building a strong technology portfolio is a direct result of the outstanding work of the researchers at naval labs and warfare centers, the intellectual property attorneys who protect this technology and the financial support of the Office of Naval Research and the labs and warfare centers that fund these efforts,” said John Forrest, ONR deputy counsel and Intellectual Property Counsel of the Navy.
ONR manages the DON’s patent portfolio—setting policy and conducting oversight of patents as well as trademarks, copyrights, inventions and royalty payments for intellectual property.
A few examples of the patent submissions shepherded by ONR in 2013 include:
• Systems of Testing Fire Fighting Vehicle: A system that tests the liquid-delivery equipment on fire trucks for holes or leaks with an environmentally safe fluid. Specifically, the system tests piping, valves, pumps and other fluid-transporting parts without using potentially toxic foam or chemicals that could leak into the environment.
• Sonar Image Texture Segmentation: A new method of analyzing sonar images and making their features sharper and more visible.
• Meteorology and Oceanography Geospatial Toolset: This improves access to a set of software libraries known as NetCDF, which impacts cartography, map analysis and editing of geospatial data.
IEEE evaluated 5,000 organizations across 17 industries for the number of patents issued as well as the growth, impact, originality and general applicability across each portfolio. In addition, the IEEE “Pipeline Growth Index” underscores the Navy’s strong commitment to innovation, with the number of patents growing by 11 percent annually over the previous five years.
Spectrum Magazine partners with the 1790 Analytics firm to produce the annual ranking of corporations, nonprofits, academic institutions and government agencies.
Office of Naval Research
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