We Set Out to Create

In the early 2000’s, Dr. Michael Chegini of Owen Group, Inc., an award-winning architectural and engineering and Plan Review service firm based in Los Angeles, California, commonly had forklifts beep their way through the double-door entrance of their offices, bringing in large plan sets by the pallet load from different agencies for compliance review including projects such as the new World Trade Center in New York, Los Angeles Unified School District, San Diego International Airport, Metro Rail Stations, Hospitals, to name a few.

Michael Chegini and his team endeavored to find a better way to manage the plan sets and perform collaborative plan reviews. It was a waste of time, money, space, and paper. After searching and finding that a solution meeting their needs did not exist, Michael Chegini and his team, together with other industry experts including building and planning officials, began the development of software that would allow multiple users to review drawings electronically together, in real-time from multiple locations, over the internet.

Dr. Michael Chegini and his team innovated and produced revolutionary technology for conducting compliance reviews in the construction industry. The successful launch of his software, ePlan, within Owen Group led the United States Patent Office to grant several patents. The original patent, entitled “System and Method for Dynamic Linking between Graphic Documents and Comment Databases,” protects e-Plan’s proprietary method for the dynamic linking of a comment database storing mark-ups, plan corrections, and/or other comments to graphic documents such as construction plans and was filed in 2007.

*Patent No. US 7,975,222 B1, “System and Method for Dynamic Linking between Graphic Documents and Comment Databases” (Issued July 5, 2011; Serial number 11/900479, Filing Date: Sept. 11, 2007)

This technology is the foundation of e-Plan web-based e-PlanREVIEW® and e-PlanCheck® software that provides code compliance agencies with the ability to perform electronic plan reviews.

Since they already had an amazing product, the Owen Group principals decided they should start their own software firm, and thus e-PlanSoft™ was born and started selling e-PlanCHECK® (ePC).  The legacy product was an electronic plan review application for city, county, and state permitting agencies, whose feature set was greatly influenced by significant input from former building officials, architects, and engineers.

The first order of business to help the company succeed was partnering with Accela.

e-PlanSoft continued to update its software and protect it by filing its second Patent.

*Patent No. US 8,595,617 B2, “System and Method for Dynamic Linking between Graphic Documents and Comment Databases” (Issued Nov. 26, 2013; Serial number: 13/173844, Filing Date: June 30, 2011)

In July of 2012, e-Plan, Inc. was awarded a registered trademark for e-PlanCheck® (Int. Cl.: 9 Reg No. 4,200,225), online plan review software that was developed specifically to assist public agencies in reviewing, commenting on, and organizing documentation throughout multiple departments at once.  e-PlanSoft™ also filed for its third Patent.

Patent No. US 9,135,602, “Management of Building Plan Documents Utilizing Comments and a Correction List” (Issued Sept. 15, 2015; Serial number: 13/557612, Filing Date: July 25, 2012)

The integrity of our products speak for themselves and we’ll back it up. In 2013 e-PlanSoft™ filed e-PlanREVIEW® as a registered trademark and an additional patent.

• Patent No. US 9,720,886, “System and Method for Dynamic Linking Between Graphic Documents and Comment Data Bases” (Issued August 1, 2017; Serial number: 14/084323; Filing Date: November 19, 2013)

2 more Patents were filed this year.

• Patent No. US 9,792,024 B2, “Systems and Methods for Management and Processing of Electronic Documents using Video Annotations” (Issued October 17, 2017; Serial number: 14/828361; Filing Date: Aug. 17, 2015)
• Patent No. US 9,684,643 “Management of Building Plan Documents Utilizing Comments and a Correction List” (Issued June 20, 2017; Serial number: 14/842598; Filing Date: September 1, 2015)

We filed 2 additional patents in 2017, bringing our total to 8.

• Patent No. US 10,114,806 B2, “Management of Building Plan Documents Utilizing Comments and A Correction List” (Issued October 30, 2018; Serial number 15/612,704, Filing Date: Jun. 2, 2017)
• Patent No. US 10,198,407, “Systems and Methods for Forr Dynamic Linking Between Graphic Documents and Comment Data Bases” (Issued February 5, 2019; Serial number: 15/655787; Filing Date: July 20, 2017)

e-PlanSoft™ has expanded on its success in serving governmental code enforcement agencies with its 2018 release of e-PlanREVIEW® (EPR). Deployed in e-PlanSoft™’s Amazon Cloud, and running entirely in the browser, our next generation of electronic plan review, e-PlanREVIEW®, was released with strong electronic versioning that tracks plans through the entire submittal lifecycle and creates an audit trail viewable by administrators of the system.  Concurrent plan reviews on the same document at the same time, with workflow assignments and strong versioning, break down silos between agency departments as well as outside consultants by eliminating the need to make copies of plans, merge comments from multiple sources or check-in and out documents from individuals to review.

While our next generation of electronic plan review was gaining tons of attention, our developers were hard at work updating features, and our product was granted an additional patent:

• Patent No. US 10,198,407, “System And Method For Dynamic Linking Between Graphic Documents And Comment Data Bases” (Issued February 5, 2019; Serial number 15/655787, Filing Date: July 20, 2017)

We also filed for an additional Patent. 

• Patent #10,650,189, ” Management of Building Plan Documents Utilizing Comments and a Correction List” (serial number 15/612704; filed 2/21/2019)

History books have already started to speak about the massive pandemic of COVID-19 that was felt worldwide causing everything to shut down and the world to mass quarantine with stay-in-place orders, remote work and learning environments, and so much more. This is the year many realized how much Technology was needed so that our economy doesn’t crash. Those agencies already using digital products were a step ahead of those that were still on paper.  Our team quickly put together a plan to help get multiple municipalities online faster than they’ve been before.

Our development team was busy updating and adding new features as well such as our REVIEWSessions™, which launched in June 2020.  With REVIEWSessions, agencies had the ability to do a “virtual counter” visit via EPR for any pending items on projects to help close plan reviews faster.

In addition, in 2020 our goPost™ and PDF Scout products were launched. goPost™ Citizen Self-Service portal allows applicants to apply for permits, upload and submit plans for review, manage document versioning, access reviewer comment reports, and download reviewed and approved plans. 

PDF Scout™ saves time in checking your PDF files! It identifies known issues in PDF files immediately upon upload to goPost™ our Customer Self-Service Portal and e-PlanREVIEW®.  If there is a problem with the PDF, the file will not be accepted.

The following Patents were also issued, updating our portfolio to include 10 total patents issued and 3 pending applications:

• Patent #10,650,189, ” Management of Building Plan Documents Utilizing Comments and a Correction List” (serial number 15/612704; filed 6/2/2017; Issued 5/12/2020)
• Patent #10,657,314, “System and Method for Dynamic Linking between Graphic Documents and Comment Data Bases” (Serial number 16/506138; filed 7/9/2019; Issued 5/19/2020)

Our products, team, and service continued to make headlines as our company expanded.  2021 featured our “Educational Webinar Series,” where every 3 weeks, we brought an hour of packed information from tips, tricks, and trends to specific use cases and more.  

As our client list grew, we found a need for dedicated Account Managers and extending our product training by offering new quarterly brush-ups for EPR users that we liked to call “Raising the Bar on EPR,” and we heard nothing but praises from our clients on this added touch of service.

Lastly, our developers were the best part of our team as they continued to bring the best features to our products, and we continued to file the patents needed to protect those fabulous features. Here are our 2021 approved patents:

• Patent No. US 10,897,490 B2, “Systems and Methods for Augmenting Electronic Content” (Serial number 15/730581, Filing Date: 10/11/2017; Issued date: 1/19/2021)
• Patent No. US 10,956,668 B2, “Management of Building Plan Documents Utilizing Comments and a Correction List” (Serial number 16/860,993, Filing Date: 4/28/2020; Issued date: 3/23/2021)

In June of 2022, Ms. Paula Montoya was promoted from Manager of Professional Services to Chief Operating Officer. Paula stepped into this role after showing an exceptional increase in our customer experience. She also became a stockholder and a partner in December 2022.

In addition, Mr. John Kalkanian, our human resources manager and controller, was promoted to Vice President of Finance.  

Growth didn't stop with people! e-PlanSoft™ kept up with its innovation and in 2022, filed one new patent and was issued three additional patents! 

• Patent #11,580,293, “System And Method For Dynamic Linking Between Graphic Documents And Comment Data Bases” (Serial number 17/657099; filed 3/29/2022).
• Patent #11,271,983, “Systems And Methods For Augmenting Electronic Content” (Serial number 17/148328; filed 1/13/2021; issued 3/8/2022).
• Patent #11,295,066, “System And Method For Dynamic Linking Between Graphic Documents And Comment Data Bases” (Serial number 17/451216; filed 10/18/2021; issued 4/5/2022).
• Patent #11,334,711, “Management Of Building Plan Documents Utilizing Comments And A Correction List” (Serial number 17/249826; filed 3/15/2021; issued 5/17/2022).
  
  

We value our customers and their input. All our product additions and enhancements directly result from our customer's feedback. 

With this in mind, ePlanFORM was launched which allows users to turn their PDF Forms into smart web forms to simplify the entry of customer form data into their system.

We were granted two additional Patents in 2023 as well.

• Patent No. US 11558445, “Systems And Methods For Augmenting Electronic Content” (Issued January 17, 2023; Serial number 17/652613, Filing Date: February 25, 2022)
• Patent No. US 11580293, “System And Method For Dynamic Linking Between Graphic Documents And Comment Data Bases” (Issued February 14, 2023; Serial number 17/657099, Filing Date: March 29, 2022)