The first prototype of Skygauge Robotics wasn’t built in a gleaming lab or high-tech accelerator. It was built in a garage.

“Everything you’re seeing today is directly as a result of the intellectual property (IP) clinic helping us secure our first patent early on,” said Nikita Iliushkin, co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Skygauge. “That was critical and instrumental in our success.”

Born at the BEST Lab at the Lassonde School of Engineering and with the support of the IP Innovation Clinic at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, Skygauge filed its first patent in 2016. Granted in 2020, that patent became the pivot point that turned a garage project into a global industrial drone company.

Reinventing the drone

Most drones today are designed to see. Skygauge drones are designed to work.

“We’ve created a completely new drone platform for doing physical work,” Iliushkin said. “Most drones today look and take photos and videos. Our drone can physically contact and interact with the environment.”

Their IP is based on a patented tilting rotor design that allows the drone to apply force, stabilize itself in winds up to 40 km/h, and maintain precise contact with industrial surfaces.

“That tilting rotor design, when combined with a force sensor at the end of a probe, can stabilize itself while applying force onto a surface,” Iliushkin said. “You’re able to dial in with a precise amount of force when you’re contacting.”

This capability opened the door to new applications, starting with industrial ultrasonic inspections.

“Instead of a doctor checking for your health, people are inspecting the health of critical infrastructure,” as Iliushkin put it. The company has expanded into rust removal, repainting, and offshore maintenance.

The patent that changed everything

For early-stage founders, filing a patent can feel impossible.

“From a founder’s perspective, I can’t tell you how much pain this causes,” Iliushkin said. “Early on, you’re cash-strapped and you want to invest every dollar in building a product or talking to customers. To take away from that is very difficult. That’s where the IP Innovation Clinic was fantastic, helping us minimize those costs as much as possible.”

That investment paid off at the right moment. In 2020, Skygauge had just received its patent allowance when it met with an investor.

“Having a patent was an essential part of us securing our first major funding round,” Iliushkin recalled. “Many drone companies have challenges differentiating themselves and building a competitive moat. This patent and our IP strategy built up some of that defensibility and got them over that hump to invest. It really separates us from the market today.”

The patent helped close the gap between doubt and belief, and helped close the round of funding Skygauge needed to scale.

Going global

Skygauge has since secured a contract with the Royal Canadian Navy to develop drones for rust removal and repainting. Roughly dozens of units are now in use around the world, from steel plants to industrial sites.

The technology creates opportunity not only for Skygauge, but also for its service partners.

“Asset owners put off challenging inspections because they don’t have enough budget in the maintenance cycle,” Iliushkin said. “But the drone offers a 50 to 90 per cent cost reduction so that service companies with a Skygauge drone can fit it into the scope, and that’s net new revenue for the service provider. These are jobs they previously would not have done that they’re now considering.”
The bigger picture is avoiding catastrophic losses from downtime.

“The big problem that both us and maintenance companies are solving is unplanned downtime,” Iliushkin said. “Plants we’re working with run revenues north of a million dollars per day. Any amount of unplanned downtime is catastrophic.”

A Canadian success story

Skygauge Robotics shows how a single patent, filed with the help of York University’s IP Innovation Clinic, can change everything. It gave a young startup the confidence of defensibility, helped secure funding, and opened the door to global contracts.

“Without that early patent, we would not be where we are today,” Iliushkin said.

Skygauge shows what’s possible when early IP support meets bold innovation.

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