Two alumni team up to earn three U.S. patents

Daniel Balthaser ’11, a dual major in computer science and digital forensics, and Shane Levengood ’13, a dual major in computer science and environmental, geographical, and geological sciences, worked together to create these methods for the Nebula Enterprise eDiscovery appliance at KLDiscovery.

KLDiscovery is an eDiscovery company. eDiscovery refers to the process of identifying, collecting, and preserving information stored electronically for a variety of purposes. Most often, this process is used for litigation or regulatory purposes. Traditionally, this process required clients to open their secure network security system, potentially making their data vulnerable, and buy an additional hardware piece to run the process.  
 
KLDiscovery has offices in over 30 locations across 18 countries.

“The system we created allows a client to click a button on their appliance to create an external connection that we can use to support their Nebula Enterprise box. This means that you don’t need to create an external hole in your firewall or purchase an additional piece of hardware,” said Balthaser, who lives in Perkiomenville. “In other words, they have made the entire process more secure and less expensive and complicated to run.”

“We developed these methods while creating the prototype of the Nebula hardware appliance,” said Balthaser. “It was a project we were working on mostly after hours because we thought that it would be a fun side project.”  

“Once the actual work was completed, we had to meet regularly with patent attorneys to describe, document, and outline the invention. There were many rounds of editing before we could finally submit the patent applications,” said Balthaser. “After that, the waiting game started for the U.S. Patent Office to review the applications and grant the patents.  “

Balthaser and Levengood, who lives in Austin, Tx, are continually looking for opportunities to improve the customer experience. “Our goal is to create the best possible eDiscovery platform and offer it to our customers wherever or however they need it,” said Balthaser. “If we end up creating something else that we believe to be patentable, we will, of course, pursue this process again.