internet of things (iot) m&a target candidates insights from patents

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1 Internet of Things (IoT) M&A Target Candidates Insights from Patents Alex G. Lee ([email protected] ) https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/2853055 Smart Home Energy Management Ecofactor (http://www.ecofactor.com/ ) provides automated energy savings, comfort and control through energy efficiency, demand response and HVAC performance monitoring services. Ecofactor holds 26 issued US patents including one design patent regarding thermostat. In assessment of the commercial importance (e.g., potential commercial implementation or licensing potential), Ecofactor patents ranked second following Samsung Electronics among top 10 innovators in the smart home patent landscape research . Allure Energy (https://www.allure-energy.com/ ) is a smart home energy management company based in Austin, Texas. Allure Energy develops leading- ©2015 TechIPm, LLC All Rights Reserved http://www.techipm.com/

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Internet of Things (IoT) M&A Target Candidates Insights from PatentsAlex G. Lee ([email protected])

https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/2853055

Smart Home Energy Management

Ecofactor (http://www.ecofactor.com/) provides automated energy savings, comfort and control through energy

efficiency, demand response and HVAC performance monitoring services. Ecofactor holds 26 issued US patents

including one design patent regarding thermostat. In assessment of the commercial importance (e.g., potential

commercial implementation or licensing potential), Ecofactor patents ranked second following Samsung

Electronics among top 10 innovators in the smart home patent landscape research.

Allure Energy (https://www.allure-energy.com/) is a smart home energy management company based in Austin,

Texas. Allure Energy develops leading-edge smart energy management solutions for many IoT applications. Allure

Energy holds 22 issued US patents. Significant number of forward citations shows the high quality of the family

patents. Especially, many patents of most key industry players including Google (Nest Lab), GE and Honeywell in

the smart energy management heavily cited Allure Energy patents.

Smart Home Automation

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Neura (http://www.theneura.com/) provides the intelligence IoT platform and human-centered smart home

application solutions. Neura patent application US20150019714 illustrates the adaptable autonomous smart home

system. The adaptable autonomous smart home system can recognize the contextual or semantic profiling of a

person or place or devices (physical environment) based on sensed data by the IoT devices. The adaptable

autonomous smart home system determines particular interpretation instructions (define particular IoT device

control rules) that are associated with the particular physical environment and dynamically updates the control

rules for changing physical environment.

Pie Digital (http://piedigital.com/) provides cloud-based services for smart home applications. Pie Digital patent

application US20140201340 illustrates the smart home system that can dramatically simplify and automate the

configuration, maintenance and integration of the IoT devices in the home and office.

Smart Home Personal Care

Jibo (https://www.jibo.com/) provides the world’s first social robot for the home (demo video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N1Q8oFpX1Y). Jibo patent application US20140277735 illustrates the

friendly, helpful and intelligent home robot that can adapt to reside continually in the environment of a person and

to interact with a user. Jibo can provide emotional engagement with the user. Jibo can sense and respond and learn

as the user engage with Jibo.

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Affectiva (http://www.affectiva.com/) is an emotion sensing technology company that grew out of MIT’s Media

Lab. Affectiva patent application US20140200463 illustrates a practical possibility of implementation of emotion-

aware smart home IoT applications by determining well-being status from an analysis of facial information and

physiological information of an individual.

Connected Cars

INRIX (http://inrix.com/) analyzes traffic and movement data from 100’s of data sources including the most robust

crowd-sourced network of 175 million vehicles and devices. INRIX patent application US20150035666 illustrates

the system for monitoring the user driving behavior in various driving contexts, and presenting driving suggestions

of alternative driving behaviors. The presentation of the alternative driving behaviors to the user can facilitate

changes in user driving behavior that improve the safety, efficiency, and/or comfort of the driving experience.

Zubie (http://zubie.com/) was formed in 2012 as a joint venture between Best Buy and Open Air Equity Partners.

Since began with a focus on connected car applications for consumers in the US, and has expanded globally into

services for insurers, small businesses, large fleets and auto dealers. US20140167983 illustrates an integration of

the smart home and connected car system. Smart home system includes home smart appliance networks, home

smart energy systems, smart lighting system and others. The smart home system can include sensors or

components that are physically located at different places throughout the home and are in communication with a

central "command center" that consolidates information from each of the sensor/components whether a particular

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entry door, window, or garage door is opened, or whether a motion sensor has sensed any motion, or whether a

particular light or set of lights is off/on or a current temperature of the house

Connected Healthcare

Bobo Analytics (http://www.mybobo.com) is a smart healthcare technology and data analytics company for

performance optimization. Bobo Analytics patent application US20140073486 illustrates the physiological

measurement systems for continuous health and fitness monitoring. A lightweight wearable system is provided to

collect various physiological data continuously from a wearer without the need for a chest strap. The system also

enables monitoring of the physiological parameters in addition to heart rate including body temperature, heart rate

variability, motion, sleep, stress, fitness level, recovery level, effect of a workout routine on health, caloric

expenditure. The system enables automatic interpretation of the physiological parameters to assess the

cardiovascular intensity experienced by a user.

Hello (https://hello.is) builds hardware and software to help people live better through understanding themselves

and the world around them. Founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, California. Hello is a team of designers,

engineers, and operations staff. US20140249760 illustrates the system including wearable or portable monitoring

device that can detect user's activities, behaviors, habit information, and health. The monitoring system determines

user's melanin level.

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IoT Security

Zscaler (https://www.zscaler.com/) is a global cloud-based information security company. Zscaler patent

application US20140208426 illustrates the system for dynamic cloud-based malware behavior analysis. The cloud-

based behavioral analysis system includes nodes that communicatively coupled to the users. The nodes perform

inline monitoring and malware detection and preclusion.

IoT Big Data Analytics

Bit Stew Systems (http://www.bitstew.com/) provides the premier platform for handling complex data integration,

data analysis, and predictive automation for connected devices on the Industrial Internet. In the electricity supply

industry, a typical advanced metering infrastructure network comprises millions of smart meters, each containing

multiple hardware and software elements, sending hundreds of millions of data points per day through a variety of

communications networks to an array of back-office systems. Bit Stew Systems patent application

US20150213035 illustrates the big data analytics system for organizing, searching and accessing data created by

multiple disparate data sources within a utility supply system.

Cloud for IoT

EVRYTHNG (https://evrythng.com/) provides the IoT cloud platform that connects any consumer product to the

Web and manages real-time data to drive applications. EVRYTHNG patent application US20140181256 illustrates

the system that can compute the object identifier and contextual information based on pre-defined set of rules and

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map the object identifier and contextual information to an entry point associated with a specific computer

application. The system provides access to the specific the application to the end-user through the cloud services.

IoT FinTech

PayRange (https://www.payrange.com/) provides the credit card solutions for machines. PayRange patent

application US20150227928 illustrates the mobile-device-to-machine payment system for facilitating a cost-

effective and easy-to-use cashless transaction for purchase of products or services by a user from a payment

accepting unit such as vending, parking meters, luggage carts, transit ticketing, laundromats and amusement.

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