Patent ID: 8386491

Claim:
A method for utilizing organization-level technology demand information comprising the acts of: identifying a plurality of subtechnologies across a plurality of different unrelated fields of technology, wherein each of the plurality of subtechnologies is characterized by a common granularity level; identifying subtechnology demand information for one or more of the plurality of subtechnologies; generating a plurality of subtechnology profiles corresponding to said plurality of subtechnologies, wherein each of said plurality of subtechnology profiles is a collection of the technology attributes, as has been defined for each of the corresponding plurality of subtechnologies, wherein each individual technology attribute that comprises said collection is defined for each of the plurality of subtechnologies, and wherein each individual technology attribute includes technology-specific information describing a particular facet of a technology's existence or function, and such technology-specific information specifically including the subtechnology demand information, wherein the subtechnology demand information further links a particular organization's internal demand for such technology-specific information with the technology-specific information itself; receiving a subtechnology query from a user; and ranking a plurality of subtechnology search results based on said subtechnology demand information, wherein said ranking of the subtechnology search results is further based, at least in part, on a quantitative comparison of a subtechnology's general relevance to the user, with its internal relevance to the particular organization.