70 Patents Filed: A Look at Budderfly’s Industry-Leading Innovation
By: Jaan Leemet, Intellectual Property Specialist at Budderfly
2025 was a record year for patents at Budderfly. We filed 21 new patents and brought our total number of patents on file to 70. This innovation is the result of Budderfly’s talented team and our collaborative environment. A total of 29 named inventors from across the organization filed patents, with 13 being first time inventors.
Budderfly’s newest patents reflect a diverse portfolio of solutions and a quickly growing set of technologies designed to help our customers save energy.
An Award-Winning Virtual Power Plant Invention
Several key filings in 2025 were related to our Virtual Demand Side Power Plant (VPP), which was recognized by TIME as one of the Best Inventions of 2025.
Budderfly has been expanding its VPP footprint to offer decentralized energy resources across our growing customer base, providing them with more reliable power, reduced costs, and new revenue streams that help small business owners thrive on tight margins. Our VPP is unlike any other in the market. It is the first of its kind designed for small and mid-sized commercial businesses. We have filed several patents to protect our innovative approach used to deliver this award-winning solution.
Our Fast Growth Inspires Creative Solutions
Many of Budderfly’s inventions are inspired by our rapid growth. We have literally doubled our deployments every year, and innovation is key to keeping pace with our incredible expansion. A good example is our internal multi-protocol adapter (MPA) device, a solution that enables rooftop HVAC units to communicate wirelessly using protocols that have traditionally been wired. Our patent pending solution removes the need for drilling through rooftops and all the associated permissions and permits required. This has drastically sped up and simplified deployments. Plus, it eliminates the risks that come with drilling, such as leaks and cracks that could lead to bigger issues.
Deploying at scale also led to our configuration optimizer for RTU deployments. Budderfly has rolled out thousands of HVAC rooftop units (RTUs), and our teams have become very proficient at configuring these for optimal performance. Outside of Budderfly, many would simply deploy a new energy efficient unit and be happy seeing that they had achieved some savings. No so here! At Budderfly, we are always looking for innovative ways to take energy savings to the next level, and by fine tuning the settings we can often squeeze out another 10-15% of efficiency from a unit. Our team devised a patent pending system to do exactly that—one that also tracks these optimum configurations across similar sites and updates them during routine maintenance.
A Holistic Approach Results in Maximum Savings
Another area where we’ve developed and filed a number of key patents has been in ventilation TABS (test/adjust/balance). This is a key driver for energy savings in commercial kitchens where exhaust and makeup air systems may be running continuously. Our approach of focusing on system-level airflow, pressure optimization, and analyzing how exhaust, makeup air, and HVAC systems interact led us to patent pending ways of maintaining proper mass flow balance and building pressure.
One of the beauties of the Budderfly model is that we manage most (if not all) of the major energy consuming equipment at our customers’ sites. This allows us to approach efficiency more holistically. If another company simply comes in to install a kitchen fan, or any other single component or system for that matter, they may do a good job, but they won’t even consider how other on-site equipment or systems might interact. For example, how will the new fan affect other aspects of the overall system such as pressure balance or overall airflow in a facility? At Budderfly, we fine tune these settings, ensuring overall compatibility across the site. We also monitor them for the life of the equipment to ensure ongoing performance.
Each patent has a story, but more impactfully, the patents as a group act to protect Budderfly's innovative approach to energy management from an overall perspective. They encompass the core model used in our approach, the many facets of our enabling technology, as well as the many point solutions we've created to address specific areas.
In the end, it’s the customer that wins with better and more reliable equipment that performs with optimal efficiency.