There is a reason most Americans default to Google when using an online search engine: It is simple, attractive, and easy to use. It makes it incredibly easy to narrow results and get exactly what you are looking for with few hurdles. In the world of federal innovation, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) sought to make it quick and easy to search Department of Energy (DOE) intellectual property (IP) content.

Federal laboratories and agencies work to solve issues affecting the American public, and the DOE invests hundreds of millions of dollars per year in research that yields a wealth of IP. But, too often, labs’ groundbreaking innovations were difficult to find, meaning many were never adopted and deployed.

In 2024, PNNL steamrolled the antiquated system with Visual Intellectual Property Search (VIPS). The high-powered search tool for patents filed and software created in all DOE national laboratories was developed to advance industry and benefit the American public, eliminating several issues with the more outdated systems.

VIPS gives users an aesthetically pleasing and interactive tool that pairs ease of use with modern information. It works by automatically collecting data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, software content from the DOE Office of Science and Technical Information, and open-source software from GitHub. That auto-updating ensures that the engine is up-to-date and allows tech scouts, entrepreneurs, researchers, and others to easily find a comprehensive list of national lab innovations available for licensing or immediate use.

Users type in keywords or use visual filters to discover available offerings and then narrow the results by clicking on categories. Once there, users read abstracts describing potential applications of the IP and compare offerings to find the right breakthrough for their needs. Voila!

VIPS also offers easy access to commercialization experts to discuss licensing opportunities and direct links to open-source software that can be used for free. In consultation with Tradespace, VIPS developed a novel taxonomy that provides richer data and greater search discoverability. The tool updates itself weekly to stay current, providing a pathway for streamlined commercialization and automated reporting.

By March of 2025, VIPS contained information on nearly 14,000 patents and more than 6,000 pieces of open-source and proprietary copyrighted software, all conveniently accessible in one place. At the time of this writing, VIPS contained 14,700 patents and 7,400 pieces of software.

When the platform was originally rolled out, VIPS attracted between 500 and 1,800 users per day, which continued at a 50 to 100 user-per-day clip afterwards. Today, VIPS still receives about 35 to 40 new users per day. In a recent four-week period, users reviewed information on 450 patents and copyrights and initiated 10 emails to ask about licensing.

VIPS helps its target audience access DOE innovations more easily and eliminates the time-consuming process of manually gathering information and populating search engines. VIPS enhances the visibility of DOE and its national labs and encourages collaboration among labs, industry, and academia. Like the best standard search engines we use every day, VIPS makes finding what we need a positive experience.

This technology received the 2025 Technology Transfer Innovation Award. Learn more here and discover more awardees in our Awards Gallery.