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Intellectual Property

Patent Portfolio Strategy
buildnyc.ai

Top 5 provisional patent filings ranked by patentability, commercial value, and Alice Corp. survivability.
Generated from platform architecture analysis — March 2026.

Filing Priority File in order listed
Provisional Cost ~$3–5k each
Total Budget (Provisionals) ~$18–22k
Window File before any public disclosure
Jurisdiction USPTO (US-first, PCT later)
01
Union Labor Penetration Rate Inference for Prevailing Wage Jurisdictional Analysis
Strongest Alice Survival File First Legal Proceedings

A computer-implemented method for computing union labor penetration rates at the project, building, submarket, and jurisdictional levels using a two-layer attribution engine with a conditional co-occurrence rule. Layer 1 — anchor trade matching: contractor membership rosters for three specific trades — IBEW (electrical), Plumbers (UA), and Sprinkler Fitters (UA) — are scraped from union websites and cross-referenced against contractor entities on permit filings. These three trades are selected as anchors because their contractors are identifiable in permit records and their rosters are programmatically accessible; matched entities receive confirmed union attribution. A union GC registration — the general contractor entity matched against union GC membership records — serves as an additional co-occurrence kicker: a union-registered GC on the project strengthens the inference that anchor-confirmed union conditions apply to the full project team. Layer 2 — co-occurrence inference: when anchor trade contractors are confirmed union on a project (and no anchor trade is confirmed non-union), all other trades on that same project are inferred union via co-occurrence. Hard dissolve rule: if even one anchor trade on a project is confirmed non-union, co-occurrence inference is suppressed for the entire project — the project is classified open shop regardless of GC registration status. Union attribution is aggregated across all active projects within a defined market — by borough, work type, or jurisdiction — to derive an overall market penetration rate. Output: a statistically defensible union penetration percentage for a defined market, formatted for use in administrative proceedings, litigation, and prevailing wage coverage determinations.

Inventive Step
Four compounding inventive steps: (1) the selection of IBEW, Plumbers, and Sprinkler Fitters as anchor trades — a methodological choice based on roster accessibility and permit entity identifiability; (2) union GC registration as a co-occurrence kicker — GC entity matched to union GC membership records strengthens inference that anchor-confirmed union conditions extend to the full project team; (3) anchor-triggered co-occurrence with a hard dissolve rule — confirmed anchor trade presence propagates union attribution to all co-trades, but a single confirmed non-union anchor trade suppresses co-occurrence for the entire project (open shop classification); (4) project-level aggregation across a defined market (borough, work type, jurisdiction) to produce a statistically defensible market penetration rate. No existing system applies anchor-trade-triggered co-occurrence inference with a conditional dissolve rule at the project level to compute a market-wide union penetration rate.
Claim Structure
Claim 1 — The two-layer engine with conditional co-occurrence: (Layer 1) scraping IBEW, Plumbers, and Sprinkler Fitter rosters + union GC membership records → cross-reference against permit contractor entities → confirmed anchor trade and GC attribution; (Layer 2) where all anchor trades present are union-confirmed (and GC is union-registered), union attribution is inferred for all co-trades on the consolidated project; wherein if any anchor trade on the project is confirmed non-union, co-occurrence is suppressed and the project is classified open shop; active project universe filtered per Patent #6, project consolidation per Patent #3, labor-hour weighting per Patent #2 → project-level aggregation across defined market → labor-hour-weighted union penetration rate
Claim 2 — Applied to prevailing wage coverage analysis in administrative proceedings
Claim 3 — Evidentiary packaging: Layer 1 entities cite roster URL + permit record; Layer 2 entities cite co-occurrence project record; all weighted by labor-hour estimates with methodology citation
Claim 4 — Dynamic re-queue: legal proceeding filing triggers prioritized document processing for all associated project plans
Claim 5 — Dual-shop detection: a roster-confirmed union contractor whose consolidated project history shows statistically significant absence of anchor trade co-occurrence receives a dual-shop probability score, usable as evidence of open-shop work in wage compliance proceedings
Claim 6 — Comptroller reference: all labor hour estimates (anchor trades via equipment extraction; inferred trades via scope-based coefficients) are cross-referenced against the NYC Comptroller's published prevailing wage schedules by trade, borough, and job classification to produce a Comptroller-referenced compliance rate — the legally operative output for prevailing wage coverage determinations
System Dependencies
This patent sits atop a four-patent stack — each layer is a prerequisite:

Patent #6 (Building Construction Activity Classification) — classifies whether a project is currently active using PW2 status + multi-signal fusion. Required to filter the project universe to live construction only — including completed or dormant projects corrupts the prevailing wage market calculation.

Patent #3 (Permit-to-Project Consolidation) — groups cross-system permit filings into unified project representations. Required to identify which contractors worked the same project for co-occurrence inference.

Patent #2 (Contractor Backlog & Workload Inference) — estimates project labor hours via dual-source equipment extraction: DOB NOW permit pages expose equipment quantities directly (primary source); plan document OCR supplements and validates. Labor hours derived from a synthesis of all available equipment quantities per trade — fixtures, risers, meters, sprinkler heads, electrical switches, panels — with per-unit rates applied across the full inventory. Required to weight union penetration by labor hours rather than job count — the legally defensible standard for prevailing wage proceedings. Plan OCR pipeline (Patents #4/#5) is additive, not required — DOB equipment fields are the anchor source.

A competitor must design around all four patents to replicate a labor-hour-weighted union penetration rate across active projects, admissible in a DCA or DOL proceeding. The stack is the moat.
Primary Markets
Labor law firms — prevailing wage challenges, DCA/DOL proceedings
PE developers & GCs — prevailing wage exemption documentation
Surety/bonding — workforce compliance verification
Investment screening — labor cost risk on acquisitions
Agencies — DCA/DOL auditing tools
Alice Corp. Analysis
Risk
Low
The two-source cross-reference pipeline is a specific technical transformation producing a novel data output (statistically defensible union penetration rate) that does not exist in either input alone. Lowest Alice risk in the portfolio: two concrete data sources, a specific two-layer algorithm, and a concrete legal output. Prior art is nil — no system combines roster scraping, permit cross-reference, and co-occurrence inference into a single penetration rate pipeline.
Labor Hour Estimation — Two-Method Model
Labor hours are estimated by different methods depending on trade type and data availability, then normalized to a common unit for aggregation:

Anchor trades (IBEW, Plumbers, Sprinkler Fitters) — labor hours are estimated from a synthesis of all publicly available equipment quantities: fixtures, risers, meters, sprinkler heads, electrical switches, panels, and other trade-specific items extracted from DOB NOW permit fields and plan document OCR. Per-unit labor rates (NECA manhour tables, fixture unit standards, trade-specific coefficients) are applied across the full equipment inventory to produce composite labor hour estimates — not from any single quantity type alone.

Inferred trades (all co-occurrence attributed) — project scope attributes from Patent #3 (floor area, job type, complexity tier, estimated cost) × trade-specific labor coefficients → labor hours.

Comptroller reference — all labor hour estimates, regardless of derivation method, are cross-referenced against the NYC Comptroller's published prevailing wage schedules by trade, borough, and job classification. Output: a Comptroller-referenced compliance rate — the percentage of estimated labor hours performed at or above the published prevailing wage — which is the legally operative metric for DCA prevailing wage coverage determinations. Three government sources in the citation chain: DOB permit records, DOB equipment fields, Comptroller wage schedules.
Claim 5 — Dual-Shop Detection
A roster-confirmed union GC that runs open-shop crews on certain projects is detectable because the same hard dissolve rule that governs co-occurrence inference works in reverse. Under normal operation: union GC + union anchor trades → co-occurrence fires, project classified union. Dual-shop signal: union-registered GC + one or more confirmed non-union anchor trades on the same project → co-occurrence suppressed, project classified open shop. The discordance between GC registration status and anchor trade confirmation on that specific project is itself the evidence of dual-shop operation — not just statistical absence over time, but a per-project hard conflict between GC union status and anchor trade union status. The system outputs a dual-shop probability score aggregated across a GC's project history: the proportion of their active projects where co-occurrence was suppressed due to non-union anchor trade confirmation despite union GC registration. Output is formatted as evidence for DCA wage compliance proceedings and prevailing wage audits. No existing system produces a per-project, anchor-trade-triggered dual-shop classification from public permit and roster data.
02
Contractor Backlog & Workload Inference from Permit State Alignment
Strong Alice Survival File First Standalone Licensable

A method for computing a construction contractor's current utilization, active backlog, and forward workload from public records — without contractor cooperation. Three permit states are aligned: backlog (filed, not yet permitted), active (PW2 issued, not expired), and runoff (permitted, nearing expiration). Labor hours are estimated via a dual-source equipment extraction model: (1) DOB NOW permit pages directly expose equipment types and quantities in structured fields — sprinkler heads, plumbing fixtures, risers, meters, electrical switches, panels, and other trade-specific items — scraped programmatically at scale; (2) plan document OCR extracts the same quantities from architectural drawings as a supplementary and validation layer. Labor hours are estimated from a synthesis of all available equipment quantities per trade — per-unit rates (NECA manhour tables, fixture unit standards, trade-specific coefficients) applied across the full inventory to produce composite project-level labor hour estimates. Aggregated output: contractor utilization score, forward workload in labor hours, and growth trajectory — derived entirely from public sources.

Inventive Step
Two independent inventive steps: (1) the permit state alignment methodology — backlog + active + runoff together reveal contractor capacity that no single source discloses; (2) the dual-source equipment extraction model — DOB NOW equipment fields scraped at scale as the primary source, plan OCR as the validation layer, both converted to labor hours via per-unit rate tables. No existing system computes contractor labor-hour workload from government equipment disclosures.
Primary Markets
PE/M&A due diligence — independent backlog verification before acquisition.
Surety/bonding — real-time overextension detection.
Construction lenders — pipeline verification.
Labor unions — 12–18 month work hour forecasting.
GC prequalification — capacity vetting before bid.
Sub-Claim — Comptroller Reference
Labor hour estimates for both anchor trades (equipment-based) and inferred trades (scope-based) are cross-referenced against the NYC Comptroller's published prevailing wage schedules by trade, borough, and job classification. This converts raw labor hour estimates into a Comptroller-referenced prevailing wage compliance value — a dollar-denominated and rate-denominated output directly usable in DCA proceedings. No existing system produces per-trade labor hour estimates cross-referenced to Comptroller schedules from public permit and equipment data.
Prior Art Risk
Low. No existing system infers contractor workload from permit state alignment. ERP backlog data is private. Dodge/Gordian track project starts, not contractor utilization.
Alice Corp. Analysis
Risk
Low
Produces a specific new data output (utilization score + forward workload in work units, Comptroller-referenced) through concrete transformation of three government data sources. Not abstract — transforms permit records into a novel data structure that does not exist in the input data.
03
Permit-to-Project Consolidation Algorithm
Strong Alice Survival File Now

A computer-implemented method for grouping individual permit filings from multiple government systems into unified project representations with complexity classification. Combines cross-system deduplication (BIS + DOB NOW), job type hierarchy (NB > A1 > DM), and filing thread sequencing (I1→P1→P2 = same project thread) with a 5-dimension complexity scoring formula: scope×2 + cost×3 + trade count×2 + floor area×2 + structural bonus (max 44). Outputs first-class Project nodes classified into MINOR / STANDARD / MAJOR / LARGE / MEGA tiers.

Inventive Step
The specific numeric weighting formula combined with cross-system deduplication and filing thread sequencing. No single prior reference combines all three. Generalizable to any multi-system permit jurisdiction — not NYC-specific.
Commercial Value
Core platform IP. Broadest defensive claim. Foundation for labor estimation, union scoring, contractor profiling, and activity classification. Licenses to any jurisdiction building permit intelligence.
Prior Art Risk
Moderate. "Permit clustering" exists in academic literature. Defense: the specific 5-dimension formula with exact coefficients + BIS/DOB NOW deduplication is not in any single reference. Document the exact weights in the provisional.
Alice Corp. Analysis
Risk
Low
Specific algorithm with numeric weights. Produces a new data structure (Project node with complexity tier). Transforms raw permit records — satisfies the "something more" requirement of step two.
04
Plan Examiner Behavior Modeling & Objection Prediction
Genuinely Novel File Before User Base Grows

A system for predicting regulatory objections to construction permit applications before submission. An OCR pipeline extracts text and metadata from digitized architectural plan drawings. A scraper collects historical objection records linking objection code + examiner identity + plan filing. A prediction model trained on these linked records outputs — for a given examiner × work type × code section × drawing metadata — the probability that a specific objection will be raised. Enables pre-submission plan review against individual examiner behavioral patterns.

Inventive Step
Examiner identity as a model feature — no prior system models individual government examiner behavior. The training data construction pipeline (OCR drawings linked to examiner objection records via filing identifiers) is itself patentable independent of the model.
Commercial Value
Every architect, expediter, and developer in every jurisdiction. Plan examiner bottlenecks are universal. High willingness to pay — weeks of approval delay cost real money.
Prior Art Risk
Moderate. FDA approval prediction models exist in academic literature. Defense: examiner identity as a feature + plan drawing OCR as input is not in any reference. Narrow claims to the specific technical pipeline.
Alice Corp. Analysis
Risk
Moderate
OCR pipeline + examiner identity feature = specific technical implementation. Claim must recite the specific data structures created and the machine-readable output (ranked objection list before submission). Avoid abstract language.
05
Government Document Processing Queue Prioritization
Underappreciated Broadly Licensable

A multi-signal algorithm for ranking which documents within a large government document corpus to process first, maximizing commercial value extracted per unit of processing time. Signals combined: permit issuance status (PW2), objection linkage, job filing recency, document discipline type, and filing sequence position (initial vs. revision). Output: a dynamic priority queue that routes high-value documents to processing resources before low-value documents — cutting time-to-value from years to weeks on corpora of 500k+ documents.

Inventive Step
The insight that processing order determines commercial value in large government corpora, and the specific signal combination to rank it. Born from solving a real problem: 521k plans, 300-day naive completion estimate, reduced to 27 days by prioritization alone.
Why Nobody Filed This
Requires simultaneous: large corpus, domain knowledge to identify value signals, infrastructure to execute prioritization, and the pain of processing in wrong order first. Organizations large enough to have this problem throw headcount at it instead.
Prior Art Risk
Low in this specific domain. Generic priority queue algorithms exist but none apply permit-signal-derived value scoring to document processing order.
Alice Corp. Analysis
Risk
Moderate
Claim must tie the prioritization to a specific machine output (the updated processing queue) and the specific signal combination. Avoid "method of sorting documents" framing — frame as a document intelligence system with a specific value-scoring transformation.
06
Building Construction Activity Classification via Multi-Signal Permit Fusion
Domain Novel Insurance / Title / Investment

A probabilistic method for classifying whether a building is actively under construction using public permit record signals exclusively. Five signal categories combined: PW2 issuance status, ECB violation recency and type, inspection record dates, permit expiration proximity, and filing type pattern (NB vs. A1 vs. DM). The specific signal selection — particularly PW2 as the primary gate rather than any permit filing — and the construction-domain weighting are the inventive steps. Output: a building activity score with confidence interval used for underwriting, investment screening, and market intelligence.

Inventive Step
PW2 as the primary gate (not filing submission) + the specific five-signal combination. This distinction — permit issued vs. permit filed — is non-obvious and is what separates real construction signal from paper activity.
Primary Markets
Property insurance underwriting — is this building in active construction risk?
Title companies — construction lien exposure screening.
Investment screening — active pipeline vs. dormant assets.
Lender monitoring — construction loan draw verification.
Prior Art Risk
Moderate. "Multi-signal fusion" is broad in IoT/sensor literature. Defense: construction-domain application + the specific five signals chosen (especially PW2 gate) are not in any single reference.
Alice Corp. Analysis
Risk
Moderate
Highest Alice risk of the five. Must be drafted with very specific claim language naming exact signals, exact data fields, and the specific construction-domain application. "Multi-signal fusion for activity detection" alone will not survive.
File Provisionals Now
~$18–22k Total — Do This First
  • All 6 provisionals establish priority date
  • 12 months to decide which to convert to full utility (~$25k each)
  • File before any public disclosure, conference talk, or blog post
  • Find a PropTech/fintech data patent attorney who knows Alice deeply
Protect as Trade Secrets
Do Not Patent These
  • Union trend scoring model weights + signal combination
  • NECA labor estimation weight application
  • Approval time prediction model
  • Kriging pipeline parameters
Patenting teaches competitors exactly what to build. Keep private.
Publish Defensively
Block Competitors for Free
Write a public technical post describing:

  • Pre-sale activity detection via permit burst
  • General multi-signal building activity detection

Publication creates prior art that prevents any competitor from patenting these and blocking you.
Investor / M&A Signal
The Real Use Case
Five filed provisionals tells a strategic acquirer (CoStar, Yardi, RXR, MSCI) that:

  • The methodology is defensible, not just executable
  • A competitor can't replicate and block
  • The IP transfers cleanly in an acquisition
This is worth more in a deal than any royalty stream.
Important
Do not publicly describe any of these methodologies in detail until provisionals are filed. This includes blog posts, conference presentations, investor decks, GitHub READMEs, and press releases. US law gives a 1-year grace period after public disclosure, but international protection is barred immediately. This document is confidential and should be treated as attorney-client privileged material once you engage counsel.