Abstract
Microalgae have been used widely as a biological source for several industries, such as biofuel, pharmaceutical and food. Recently, the agricultural industry has also began using microalgae as an alternative source for sustainable products to replace agrochemicals. Due to the lack of scientific articles in this research area, the objective of this study was to search for applications of microalgae and to characterize its use in agriculture using the patent documents available in three patent databases, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), European Patent Office (EPO) and Brazilian Institute of Industrial Property (INPI). The search was carried out using the keyword “microalgae” and applying the filter for International Patent Classification (IPC) code “A01N” which corresponds to patents related to agriculture and cultivation of microalgae. Our patent database search returned 669 documents and 132 patents were selected for the study based on their abstracts. The first patent was registered in 1982 and described the use of microalgae Chlorella extract as a plant growth promoter. After that, no patent was registered for 15 years. From 2005 to 2014, only seven patents were found. However, the scenario changed from 2015 when the number of patents increased mainly in the United States, China and Europe. The patent analysis showed several applications for microalgae in the agricultural sector, such as plant growth promotion, biofertilization, plant disease control, weed management, and post-harvest quality. This review confirmed the increasing interest in microalgae-derived products in agriculture and the value of using patent documents to assess innovative areas.
Highlights
Microalgae are a group of photosynthetic organisms consisting of eukaryotic organisms and prokaryotic cyanobacteria, which have great potential as bioresource alternatives for various industries (Renuka et al 2018)
Microalgae are expanding in agriculture due to the increased use of sustainable products such as biopesticides and biofertilizers that are being introduced into the market to replace agrochemicals, which are detrimental to the environment (Guo et al 2020)
In conclusion, our study showed that patent analysis was a useful tool for gathering recent information related to the use of microalgae-based products in agriculture, mainly related to the practical use of these products in the field
Summary
Microalgae are a group of photosynthetic organisms consisting of eukaryotic organisms and prokaryotic cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), which have great potential as bioresource alternatives for various industries (Renuka et al 2018). Countries from South America and Canada showed a higher number of non-resident applications These results back up the fact that China and European countries contributed meaningly to the global organic farming growth, where the area grew from 0.67 to 1 million hectares in 2016 (Willer et al 2018). Even though South America has a small market for organic food, this continent has important agricultural countries such as Brazil, which is gradually developing (See figure on page.) Fig. 3 a Distribution of patent applications related to microalgae in agriculture according to patent offices around the world. More than 84% of all patent filings in 2019 took place in the IP offices of China, the U.S, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the EPO This global scenario showed that China, US and Europe are an attractive technology market for different areas, including sustainable agriculture. There is a category called Post-Harvest which describes two patents of the same microalgae product PhycoTerra® that showed promising results on the decrease of post-harvest fruit bruise and the increase of fruit sweetness when applied to plants (Carney and Michael 2017; Carney et al 2018)
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