Archive
BIOENERGY. Latest granted patents 2014-2016. Raw material preparation and feed
Summary
During biomass production there are two parameters whose effective functioning is of paramount importance to the quality of the final product and the sustainability of the production process: pre-treatment of the feedstock and feeding systems. Pre-treatment of biomass for further production of energy products is considered one of the most challenging steps in the entire processing chain, as it is mainly responsible for the stability of the main processes. In most cases, some form of mechanical treatment (size reduction, densification, milling, etc.), drying or sorting is applied. For many types of feedstock also additional treatment, such as pelletisation or fractionation, is needed. Biomass production processes also include modern feeding systems which need to employ a reliable and safe technology, use a flexible system and should be suitable for fully automated processes. Some of the problems which can affect these systems concern particle size variations or low densities, explosion or fire risk, or the consistent monitoring of biomass quality, etc. The patents discussed in this bulletin try to address some of these issues.
The proposed bulletin is dedicated to feeding systems and pre-treatment of feedstock in biofuel production and includes patents published in 2014-2016. Research methodology is available at the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The patent bulletin includes 1130 patent documents. The patents were granted in 34 patent offices around the world. 1123 applicants from 41 countries participated in the development of the inventions. 898 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 (US), IP Australia (AU) and CNIPA (CN).
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: Xyleco Inc. (US), Solazyme, Inc. (US), Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V. (NL), Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) (IN), FRANKLIN SCOTT (US), Eni S.p.A. (IT), IFP (École Nationale Supérieure du Pétrole et des Moteurs) (FR), ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (US), API Intellectual Property Holdings LLC (US), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) (AU).
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 proposed patent statistics bulletin allows the existing trends in the intellectual property market of the specified industrial sector to be timely traced, as well as the possibility of acquiring a carefully selected list of patent documents fully corresponding to the specified subject. The bulletin can be useful for inventors, engineers, scientific workers, and business representatives, who are focused on the development of feeding systems and technologies for the pre-treatment of biomass.
