Archive
BIOENERGY. Latest granted patents 2016-2018. Algae
Summary
Producing biofuels derived from algae as feedstock holds several key advantages over earlier feedstocks based on plant crops such as sugar cane and corn and vegetable or animal waste streams. These advantages comprise higher biofuel yields, a diverse list of possible fuel products such as biodiesel, butanol, ethanol, as well as the fact that large-scale algae cultivation in open ponds or more advanced closed-loop systems can be realised on land unsuitable for food crops. Fuel conversion from algae is mainly based on its high concentrations of lipids: oil-containing acid molecules that can be extracted to create biofuels. However, this technology must overcome several hurdles before it can compete in the fuel market and be broadly deployed. Intractable problems have been encountered concerning the energy balance of lipid extraction, maintaining suitable growing conditions in open ponds, and the immense volumes of water, CO₂, and fertiliser needed to allow algae to photosynthesise fast enough at large scales. Also, nutrient and resource allocation and use, and the production of co-products to improve the economics of the entire system, are issues to which the patents presented in this bulletin try to find a solution.
The proposed bulletin is dedicated to the production of biofuels from algae and includes patents published in 2016-2018. Research methodology is available on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The patent bulletin includes 765 patent documents. The patents were granted in 26 patent offices around the world. 560 applicants from 35 countries participated in the development of the inventions. 977 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), EPO and IP Australia (AU).
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), Terravia Holdings Inc (US), Solazyme, Inc. (US), ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (US), Corbion Biotech, Inc. (US), REG Life Sciences Llc (US), Elevance Renewable Sciences Inc (US), Neste Oyj (FI), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) (AU), Trans Biodiesel Ltd (IL).
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 production of biofuels from algae.
