ENERGY & ELECTRICAL
Powering the Technologies of Tomorrow
Protecting innovations in energy generation, storage, electronics, sensing, and communications.
Energy and electrical technologies frequently combine multiple engineering disciplines. A single system may involve power generation or storage, electrical circuitry, sensors, control systems, communications, embedded processors, and software. Patent protection requires understanding not only the individual components, but how those components interact to improve the performance, efficiency, reliability, or operation of the overall system.
We work with inventors and businesses developing technologies involving energy systems, batteries and energy storage, renewable energy, electrical and electronic devices, sensors, signal processing, communications, and related technologies. Our approach begins with understanding the engineering behind the invention and identifying the particular structures, operations, and interactions that distinguish the technology from conventional systems.
ENERGY GENERATION & POWER SYSTEMS
From Generation to Delivery
Energy innovation can occur throughout the path from generation to consumption. Patentable technology may arise from how energy is generated, converted, conditioned, transmitted, distributed, controlled, or ultimately delivered to a device, system, or load.
We work with technologies involving power generation, electrical distribution, power conversion, power management, generators, converters, inverters, switching systems, control systems, and related electrical infrastructure. Innovation may reside in a particular component, but it can also arise from how multiple components are configured and controlled to improve efficiency, reliability, safety, or overall system performance.
TIP: Follow the power through the system. How energy is generated, converted, controlled, and delivered may reveal innovations that are not apparent from any individual component.
Modern power systems increasingly incorporate sensing, communications, and automated control. A system may monitor operating conditions, dynamically manage loads, isolate faults, select among available energy sources, or change operating parameters in response to demand. In these systems, patentable innovation may arise from the architecture and coordinated operation of the system rather than simply the hardware used to implement it.
BATTERIES & ENERGY STORAGE
Storing, Managing, and Delivering Power
Battery and energy-storage innovation can extend well beyond the underlying cell chemistry. Patentable technology may arise from the physical arrangement of cells, electrical interconnections, charging and discharging systems, thermal management, monitoring, safety systems, power conversion, or the architecture used to manage stored energy.
We work with inventions involving batteries, battery packs, charging technologies, energy-storage systems, battery-management systems, and related technologies. Innovations may include cell and pack configurations, charging techniques, thermal-management systems, state-of-charge or state-of-health monitoring, fault detection, balancing, and control strategies.
TIP: Look beyond the battery cell. Pack architecture, charging, thermal management, monitoring, and control may provide separate opportunities for patent protection.
Energy-storage technologies often demonstrate the importance of considering the system as a whole. Individual cells may be conventional while a new pack architecture, thermal-management technique, charging process, or control system provides a significant improvement in capacity, charging time, longevity, safety, efficiency, or reliability.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Innovation in How Energy Is Captured and Used
Renewable-energy inventions may involve the generation technology itself or the systems used to capture, convert, store, control, and integrate the resulting energy. Solar, wind, energy harvesting, and other alternative-energy technologies can therefore present innovations spanning mechanical, electrical, materials, and control systems.
We assist with technologies involving renewable generation, energy conversion, power conditioning, storage, monitoring, and integration with larger electrical systems. Patentable improvements may involve energy capture, conversion efficiency, installation, durability, system control, or the manner in which intermittent energy sources interact with storage systems and electrical loads.
TIP: Consider the entire energy path. Innovation may exist not only in generating renewable energy, but in converting, storing, managing, and using it efficiently.
Renewable-energy systems also increasingly operate as coordinated networks of technologies. Generation, storage, sensing, forecasting, power conversion, and automated control may work together to respond to changing environmental conditions and energy demand. The interaction among these technologies can itself form an important part of the invention.
ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS
The Hardware Behind Modern Technology
Electrical and electronic inventions can range from individual circuits and components to complex systems incorporating processors, sensors, communications hardware, power electronics, and embedded controls. Patent protection may address circuit architecture, component configuration, electrical interfaces, power management, control techniques, or interactions among multiple electronic subsystems.
We work with technologies involving analog and digital circuitry, electronic devices, embedded systems, power electronics, control systems, interfaces, and hardware integrated with mechanical and software components.
TIP: A collection of known components can still produce a new system. Focus on how the components are connected, controlled, and operated together.
Rather than relying on generic descriptions of conventional electronic components performing their ordinary functions, we focus on the particular configuration and operation of those components. What signals are received, how those signals are transformed, which components respond, and how their coordinated operation produces a different technical result can be important to identifying and protecting the invention.
SENSORS, SIGNALS & COMMUNICATIONS
From the Physical World to Information
Sensors provide the connection between physical conditions and the electronic and computing systems that measure, analyze, and respond to them. Innovation may arise from how a physical condition is detected, how a signal is acquired and conditioned, how information is extracted from that signal, or how the resulting information is communicated and ultimately used by another device or system.
We work with technologies involving sensors, measurement systems, signal acquisition and processing, filtering, calibration, wireless communications, telemetry, RF systems, and related technologies. Depending on the application, sensors may measure electrical activity, motion, position, pressure, force, temperature, light, sound, proximity, environmental conditions, or other physical characteristics. Improvements may involve accuracy, sensitivity, noise reduction, calibration, power consumption, range, bandwidth, reliability, or the ability to obtain useful information under conditions where conventional systems encounter difficulty.
Modern sensing systems also increasingly combine hardware with embedded software and computational processing. Raw sensor output may be digitized, filtered, normalized, transformed, compared, classified, or combined with information from other sensors before it becomes useful. Software may determine when measurements are taken, dynamically adjust operating parameters, compensate for environmental conditions, identify events or patterns, or control how the system responds to the information being detected.
TIP: Follow the signal. Consider what happens from the initial measurement through conditioning, processing, transmission, analysis, and eventual use of the information.
Innovation may also arise from sensor fusion, where information from multiple sensors or different types of measurements is combined to produce information that could not reliably be obtained from any individual sensor. Algorithms, statistical techniques, signal-processing methods, and machine-learning models may be used to identify patterns, reduce noise, compensate for uncertainty, or convert multiple streams of raw data into a more accurate representation of the physical environment.
Communications can form another important part of the invention. Sensor information may be transmitted between components, devices, gateways, vehicles, mobile applications, remote servers, or cloud platforms using wired or wireless communications. Patentable improvements may involve how information is encoded, transmitted, synchronized, prioritized, authenticated, compressed, or communicated while addressing limitations involving bandwidth, latency, interference, security, reliability, or power consumption.
Processing also does not need to occur in one location. Modern systems may divide operations among a sensor, embedded processor, edge device, mobile application, local network, and cloud platform. An invention may therefore reside in where processing occurs, what information is transmitted between components, and how hardware and software coordinate their operation to reduce latency, conserve power, improve privacy, or increase system performance.
A sensor itself may ultimately be only one part of the invention. We consider the complete path from the physical phenomenon being measured through the electronics, signal processing, communications, software, and resulting system response. That broader perspective can reveal multiple protectable aspects of a technology that may not be apparent when the sensor, communications hardware, or software is considered in isolation.
