Archive
SYNTHETIC FUELS. Latest granted patents 2014-2016. Coal-to-liquids
Summary
Coal to Liquid Fuels processes, known for more than 100 years owing to the research conducted by German scientists Franz Fischer, Hans Tropsch, and Friedrich Bergius, are currently gaining additional massive spread, due, in the first place, to the assimilation and development of these technologies in China. Inasmuch as coal is the most widely spread type of fossil fuel, using it as a feedstock to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels is a problem for many countries, who do not have sufficient oil or gas resources but do possess large coal reserves. However, serious ecological problems related to the technologies of coal liquefaction, mainly connected to greenhouse gas emissions and high water consumption, as well as poor competitive ability when compared to the conventional technologies of making oil products, require substantial technological development and organizational advancement for this energy sector. Recent patent solutions in this field predominantly are aimed at resolving these problems.
The proposed bulletin is dedicated to Coal-to-liquids and includes patents published in 2014-2016. Research methodology is available on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The patent bulletin includes 1025 patent documents. The patents were granted in 22 patent offices around the world. 697 applicants from 27 countries participated in the development of the inventions. 796 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 CNIPA (CN), USPTO (US) и IP Australia (AU).
For each of the patent documents selected for the examination in the present bulletin the characteristics of unified indicators were preliminary defined, they include: technical problems, types of inventive solutions employed, belonging to one or other technological segment. This allows the internal content for each of the indicators in the aggregate array of documents to be visualized, for instance, to define the sequence and proportional correlation of technical problems the inventive solutions disclosed in the texts aim to solve. A list of the top groups consisting of patent documents with identical unified indicators contains ID numbers and applicant names of respective documents; the groups are sorted by the number of patent documents.
Data is provided for each of the top applicants, leading in terms of the number of published patent documents among the ones examined in the bulletin, illustrating their share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of patents by problems, IPC sections, patent offices and technology indicators. Representatives of the USA and Japan prevail among the patenting leaders in the examined period of time, including: Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij B.V. (NL), General Electric (US), Thyssenkrupp Uhde Gmbh (DE), Lummus Technology Inc. (US), Sasol Technology (Pty) Ltd. (SA), ENN Coal Gasification Mining Co. Ltd. (CN), Johnson Matthey Plc (GB), Uhde GmbH (DE), Ineos Bio SA (CH), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (JP).
The bulletin contains lists of the top prominent patents having the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, the shortest patent pending time. The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 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 statistics bulletin under examination serves as one of the variants to monitor advanced technical achievements in the specified industrial sector. The statistical data, rating evaluations and carefully selected patent documents provided in the bulletin can be of interest for inventors, students and educators, engineers, as well as for businessmen and investors, who in one way or another are concerned with the problems of the development of synthetic fuel production technologies.
