Patent Issued for VizSeek’s Search Technology

West Lafayette, Indiana, USA – VizSeek today announced that patent No. 7,583,272 has been issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office to Purdue University for a method used by VizSeek’s shape search engine to retrieve shapes or drawings from a database. VizSeek has an exclusive license with Purdue University for this technology.

The method covered by the patent, along with several other methods with patents pending, powers VizSeek’s search and retrieval engine, giving it the ability to take “visual” search input criteria from a user in the form of freehand sketches, images, or two-dimensional or three-dimensional drawings or models, and convert them to a form that the search engine then uses to find a set of drawings or models with similar features within a database. The user can refine the search criteria to search within the returned set of results.

VizSeek’s shape search technology powers VizSpace, VizSeek’s online industrial community networking platform, where individuals and companies can connect and identify business opportunities.

“This patent, along with others that are currently pending, allows us to provide a unique and valuable solution to industrial markets. We’re pushing search technology beyond its traditional uses and into areas such as social networking, to provide value-added search results that can be useful in procurement and supply-chain collaboration,” says Imaginestics CEO, Nainesh Rathod.

VizSeek’s shape search technology is the answer to a great need in manufacturing and engineering environments, where large databases of drawings and models of parts and components can become unwieldy. Text-based search criteria are often not descriptive or accurate enough to find even simple components. VizSeek’s ability to search using visual criteria, ranging from the most rudimentary doodles to three-dimensional images, gives users a degree of control over their databases not possible with text-based search engines. Users can find the right part at the right time, which leads to an increase in re-use of existing designs and a reduction in redundancy and re-work.

Eric Lynch, Innovation Strategy Manager at the Purdue Research Foundation’s Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC), feels that patents like these “showcase perfectly how research in the academic world pushes innovation in the commercial world.”

“We’re happy to see the collaboration between Purdue and Imaginestics leading to these tangible results, and we’re looking forward to working with them further as future patents are issued and VizSeek continues its success in the marketplace.”

The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. The foundation accepts gifts; administers trusts; funds research, scholarships and grants; acquires property; and negotiates research contracts on behalf of Purdue. In the 1990s, the foundation was charged with helping the university in the realm of economic development. The Purdue Research Foundation oversees the Purdue Research Park, which is the largest university-affiliated business incubator in the country.

VizSeek is a developer of shape-based search technology. The company’s mission is to connect the world’s industrial users through online communities of interest, providing a catalyst for identifying business opportunities. VizSeek solutions are currently used by top government agencies and industrial leaders. VizSeek, a wholly owned subsidiary of Imaginestics, LLC, is a privately held company, headquartered at the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Indiana.