Archive
BIOENERGY. Latest granted patents 2014-2016. Landfill Gas
Summary
Production of landfill gas is a technology used for large-scale management of household wastes that, if organised correctly, allows for sustainable production of industrial biogas while at the same time reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (methane and CO2) into the atmosphere. The United States is the uncontested leader in this field, where several hundred landfill gas-to-energy projects have been carried out, some with a power capacity of more than 50 MWe. Large landfill gas facilities can also be found in Brazil and Europe. They are less common in Asia and Africa. However, there is a growing necessity for managing household wastes, and particularly for eliminating open dumps. Although producing landfill gas is a relatively well-researched and simple process, there remain a great many technological and organisational problems, first and foremost related to safety issues, ecological impact and effectiveness of the processes, which call for suitable engineering solutions.
The proposed bulletin is dedicated to landfill gas and includes patents published in 2014-2016. Research methodology is available at Advanced Energy Technologies. The patent bulletin includes 178 patent documents. The patents were granted in 14 patent offices around the world. 195 applicants from 17 countries participated in the development of the inventions. 291 subgroups of the International Patent Classification were encountered in the patent documents.
Key Highlights
The bulletin contains statistical data on the distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The top three patent offices that granted the largest number of patents were USPTO (United States), CNIPA (China), EPO.
Based on the analysis of each of the patents, internal characteristics of unified indicators (technical problems, types of inventive solutions, belonging to one or other technological segment) were found, which allowed specific features for each of the indicators for the entire array of documents to be defined, for instance, to define the leading problems or technical solution types that were disclosed by the inventors the most. Document lists are provided for the ten most popular groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators, including their ID numbers and applicant names.
The following information can be found for the top 10 applicants: breakdown of patents by problems, IPC sections, patent offices, (technological indicators), as well as the estimation of their share in the established intellectual property market. The 10 leading applicants by the number of patent documents were: UOP LLC (US), General Electric (US), Evonik Fibres Gmbh (AT), Iogen Corporation (CA), New Technology Ventures, Inc (US), University of Regina (CA), Chevron USA, Inc. (US), Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Zentrum Fur Material-und Kustenforschung GmbH (DE), BASF, SE (DE), Dow Global Technologies, LLC (US).
The top prominent documents section includes three lists of the top 10 patents having the highest bibliographical rating, the largest number of IPC sections, and the shortest patent pending time.
The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the granted patents.
Who needs this bulletin?
The data provided in the proposed bulletin is a timely reflection of the transformations that take place in the intellectual property sector of the industrial direction concerned. A thoroughly edited selection of patent documents can become a good complement to your library of available technical solutions. The bulletin is targeted at inventors, engineers, researchers, managers and business administrators involved in landfill gas production technologies.
