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`Home > This Week's Crain's > News >
`
`Call it the Eureka Index
`
`By John Pletz
`
` June 25, 2012
`
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`JUNE 25, 2012
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`Chicago companies racked up a
`mountain of patents last year,
`most of them going to giants such
`as Boeing Co., Abbott Laboratories
`and Motorola Solutions Inc.—
`companies you would expect to be
`at the top of the intellectual-
`property heap.
`
`But the list of the most innovative
`companies around Chicago also
`includes players that are hardly
`household names.
`
`Patents are "a way of life" for Midtronics Inc., says CEO Steve
`McShane, who's standing before a wall of them.
`Stephen J. Serio
`
`An exclusive analysis for Crain's
`by Ocean Tomo LLC, a Chicago-
`based boutique merchant bank
`specializing in intellectual property, reveals a top 25 list with surprising depth and breadth. It
`includes medical and manufacturing companies as well as high-technology and financial trading
`firms. Many are small, young companies carving out new businesses; others are behemoths
`reinventing themselves for their second centuries.
`
`Midtronics Inc., a Willowbrook-based maker of battery-testing equipment, was awarded five
`patents last year, compared with Boeing's 785. But Midtronics was the fourth-most innovative
`company, based on Ocean Tomo's scoring of the value and quality of its patents.
`
` See Chicago's biggest patent recipients and most prolific innovators
`
`“We're a little guy in a big market, going up against great big companies,” says Steve McShane,
`whose company has 209 employees and sales approaching $100 million annually. Its equipment
`is found in auto dealerships and repair shops around the globe.
`
`He started Midtronics in 1985 with a patent discarded by his former employer, Motorola Inc. He
`spent a decade turning the technology, developed by a Minneapolis inventor and licensed to
`Motorola, into a business. Since then, Midtronics has added nearly 150 U.S. patents, displayed
`proudly on three walls at his company headquarters.
`
`In its analysis, Ocean Tomo used
`an algorithm to evaluate patent
`awards and determine which
`ones are most likely to be
`maintained by companies, a sign
`of their value. The firm started
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`http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120623/ISSUE01/306239975/call-it-the-eureka-index#[9/19/2014 3:44:14 PM]
`
`OPINIONLAB EXHIBIT 2013
`Qualtrics LLC v. OpinionLab, Inc.
`IPR2014-00420
`
`

`

`Chicago's patent powerhouses: Ranking of most innovative companies - In Other News - Crain's Chicago Business
`
`with 432 Illinois companies with at
`least three patents in 2011.
`
`The highest-rated portfolio is that
`of Stericycle Inc., a publicly
`traded medical-waste disposal
`company with more than 10,000
`employees worldwide. The Lake
`Forest company won three
`patents last year related to its
`Sharps needle containers.
`
`OpinionLab Inc., a Highland Park
`company that gathers real-time
`customer feedback online, ranks
`second.
`
`OpinionLab CEO Rand Nickerson Photo: Stephen J. Serio
`
`CEO Rand Nickerson, a psychologist, hit on the idea of an electronic consumer feedback card
`rather than a static survey. OpinionLab also gathers behind-the-scenes website user data for
`clients such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Dell Inc., which use the feedback to uncover problems
`that keep consumers from purchasing on their websites and to measure complaints.
`
`Founded in 1999, OpinionLab employs about 70 people and has sales between $10 million and
`$20 million. With 15 patents and 15 more pending, OpinionLab now is moving into smartphones
`and exploring social media. “We've got a long way to go before exhausting the marketplace,” Mr.
`Nickerson says.
`
`The third-most innovative company is Cummins Allison
`Corp., a maker of currency-counting equipment. The 125-
`year-old Mount Prospect company has used its patents to
`win a $13 million judgment against Asian rivals and to
`enter new markets, such as check-handling.
`
`The range of companies in the ranking mirrors the
`Chicago area's overall economy, notes Ocean Tomo
`CEO James Malackowski. “Illinois is really diversified,
`compared with most other parts of the country that are
`focused on just one or two areas,” he says.
`
`BIG RESULTS, SMALL COMPANIES
`
`The highest patent output per employee in 2011 came
`from Life Spine Inc., a Hoffman Estates-based maker of
`spinal implants that cranked out 10 patents last year with
`39 workers and an engineering team of just seven.
`
`Life Spine received 20 of its 36 patents in the past year
`and has 50 more applications pending.
`
`“We've been able to keep growing by feeding R&D,” says
`CEO Michael Butler, who founded the company in 2004.
`
`Zenith Electronics Corp., the TV maker that once
`employed thousands before it was acquired by South
`Korea's LG Electronics in 1999, now employs 32 people
`in Lincolnshire, all working on R&D as a sort of
`skunkworks. Last year, the team won eight patents, and
`(cid:51)(cid:68)(cid:74)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:21)(cid:3)(cid:82)(cid:73)(cid:3)(cid:24)
`http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120623/ISSUE01/306239975/call-it-the-eureka-index#[9/19/2014 3:44:14 PM]
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`

`

`Chicago's patent powerhouses: Ranking of most innovative companies - In Other News - Crain's Chicago Business
`
`200 since 2000.
`
`Two life-sciences giants managed both quantity and
`quality. Abbott Laboratories was second-highest in total
`patents at 540 and ranked seventh in patent quality.
`Baxter International Inc., which snared 115 patents,
`ranked 10th.
`
`Another pocket of strength is financial markets. CME
`Group Inc., the world's largest futures exchange, received
`29 patents in 2011 and ranked eighth on Ocean Tomo's
`list.
`
`“The marketplace has changed dramatically in the last
`seven or eight years, from a traditional open outcry
`marketplace to technology-based, electronic trading
`platforms,” says Terrence Duffy, chairman of CME
`Group. “With that comes more transformation of the
`technology and patents associated with it.”
`
`Chicago hedge fund Citadel Investment Group LLC
`received three patents related to trading operations,
`ranking 13th in patent quality. Trading Technologies
`International Inc. of Chicago, which makes trading
`software, earned 66 patents and ranked 16th in patent
`quality and third in per capita output.
`
`The list also points to potential rising stars.
`
`Woodridge-based Elevance Renewable Sciences Inc.,
`which makes specialty chemicals from renewable
`sources and has filed to go public, ranked 14th in patent
`quality and ninth in per capita output.
`
`Chicago's Cleversafe Inc., which created a new way to
`store massive amounts of computer data, is 12th in
`patent quality and sixth in per capita output.
`
`“You've got to innovate before you patent,” says Ocean
`Tomo's Mr. Malackowski. “And early on, it tends to be
`focused around the products they intend to take to
`market. Larger companies patent more, but they abandon
`about half of them. They may look at three solutions for
`one problem.”
`
`Sachiko Yoshitsugu contributed.
`
`From this week's In Other News
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`Chicago's patent powerhouses: Ranking of most innovative companies - In Other News - Crain's Chicago Business
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`Chicago's patent powerhouses: Ranking of most innovative companies - In Other News - Crain's Chicago Business
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