Lero to commercialise NASA-developed technology

Following the award of a US patent for NASA technology to Professor Mike Hinchey, the co-director of the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre (Lero), and his former NASA colleagues, Lero is to commercially develop the technology here in Ireland.

The patent (No 7,543,274) supports the automatic generation of provably correct software using a combination of trace-based and process-based models, and was filed by Hinchey and his then colleagues James Rash and Christopher Rouff in 2004.

It is one of a number of patents – both awarded and pending – which Lero is in the process of licensing from NASA for potential commercial exploitation in the Irish software sector.

“It is a major milestone for Lero and for me personally that this patent has been awarded. This work has the potential to radically improve the reliability and quality of software, while reducing the costs of producing it,” said Hinchey.

“I believe the patent will be the first of many that together will allow us to develop a service within Lero that will be commercially valuable and scientifically innovative.”

Before joining Lero as co-director, Hinchey was director of the NASA Software Engineering Laboratory and also currently serves as a NASA Expert.