In 2013, Felipe Gomez was a promising engineering student at Case Western Reserve University with a big idea – increase fuel efficiency in jet engines through innovative use of plasma in the fuel injection process.
Leveraging the considerable university assets available to assist student entrepreneurs, Gomez applied and was accepted as a client of the CWRU School of Law’s Intellectual Property Venture Clinic (IPVC), where law students represent start-up companies and entrepreneurs, working to develop and cultivate real-world intellectual assets while also applying skills learned in the fields of corporate and securities law.
With help from the clinic at no cost, Gomez secured patents for his technology, along with assistance in drafting NDA’s and creating incorporation documents for his new company, FGC Plasma Solutions.
On January 3, 2020, Gomez announced his company was awarded $3.2 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Under the DOD funding, FGC Plasma Solutions will work to develop and field new capabilities for the Air Force. The company will also collaborate with MIT on a pair of projects for the DOE, including a plasma-based tech for converting carbon dioxide into useful chemical feedstocks and improve low emissions combustion on industrial gas turbines.
“The synergistic effect of having a free solution to all of my legal needs helped me grow FGC Plasma Solutions tremendously,” said Gomez. “I can easily say that this would have been much more difficult and much more expensive without the IP Venture Clinic.”