ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,361,380, issued on July 15, was assigned to Black Hills IP Holdings LLC (Minneapolis).
"Patent mapping" was invented by Steven W. Lundberg (Edina, Minn.) and Thomas G. Marlow (Portland, Maine).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "System and method permit patent mapping. A method may comprise maintaining a database of patent portfolios and a database of patents with each patent stored in the database of patents associated with one or more patent portfolios stored in the database of patent portfolios. A search query may be received associated with a first patent portfolio and the first portfolio may be searched as a function of the search query. ...