Bright Lights Conference Shines Light on Innovative Small Cap Companies

Bright Lights Conference Shines Light on Innovative Small Cap Companies

May 14, 2010

By Ed Silverstein
TMCnet Contributor

There were some bright lights in the big city of San Francisco shining this week as MDB Capital Group presented the stories of several of the most technologically promising small cap companies in the United States – spreading encouragement about the future of American innovation.

The Bright Lights Conference showcased the IP stories of 50 public companies ranking in the 90th percentile for technology leadership from over 1,600 small cap companies with U.S. patents granted, as rated by PatentVest, MDB's proprietary IP business intelligence database.

“The fundamental theme was these companies committed to invest in R&D and technology strategically and on the basis of a long-term strategic plan,” said MDB Managing Director Peter Conley. “They did not reduce their R&D commitment in a difficult economy. The result is they are poised to launch new products and create new markets when the economy improves.”

Conley has two decades of experience in equity research and the early identification of important, game-changing trends. He explained that the Bright Lights companies that presented to the attendees were linked by superior intellectual property but were in diverse industries and end markets. For instance:

  • A company whose pattern recognition technology and products could read moles and skin lesions to detect melanoma using an iPhone (News - Alert) camera.
  • A company whose picoprojector (RGB laser miniature projector) uses a single mirror to project a HD big screen image, instead of the tens of millions necessitated by much larger competitors. This single mirror design requires less power consumption and reduces form factor so it can be embedded into next generation smartphones and PC tablets to produce a big screen image from a phone.
  • A company whose digital watermarking technology will enable smartphones in the future to see, thereby enabling visual search, instead of text-entry keyboard search.
  • A company whose tactile feedback technology enables touch screen devices (smartphones, tablet PCs, etc.) to touch back, making their use more intuitive.
  • A company whose neurostimulating technology and products replaces pharmaceutical drugs to control over-active bladder condition, a serious health problem.

“Our research has shown that companies that invest in R&D above their peer group go on to generate higher sales growth, higher margins and higher returns to shareholder,” Conley said.

MDB’s PatentVest metrics measure this activity below the surface enabling investors to identify companies before the financial performance accelerates, Conley added.

All of the companies presenting at the Bright Lights conference ranked in the top 10 percent of 1,600 small cap companies on the basis of either their PatentVest Tech Score were greater than 30 percent of the median (Tech Score = IP strength), PatentVest Application CAGR  greater than 50 percent of the median (Application CAGR = growth rate of IP). About a third of the presenting companies met both IP strength and IP growth criteria.

Other honors were also given. For instance, TeleCommunication Systems (News - Alert), Inc. , a provider of secure mobile communication technology, received the Provectus Award at the conference.


Ed Silverstein is a contributing editor for TMCnet's InfoTech Spotlight. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page .

Edited by Michael Dinan