Patentes e etanol lignocelulósico

• Autor(a) principal: Lot, Antonio Claudio
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do FGV (FGV Repositório Digital)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10438/10927
• topic: Etanol lignocelulosico; Propriedade intelectual; Patentes; HHI; CR4; Economia; Álcool; Biocombustíveis; Propriedade intelectual

Intellectual production and technological development is being dominated by just a few countries, and appear to be highly correlated with social and economic strength. Brazil, better known for its raw materials production than technology, has been developing unique capabilities to produce fuel ethanol for decades, and has become a technological differentiator, which is helping the country gain new recognition as an innovator. The continuous focus on vertical specialization of the Sugar & Ethanol sector could bring Brazil to a privileged position in the world market. It is affording the country to move beyond being a mere supplier to becoming a real value-add player for bioethanol produced out of lignocellulosic biomass. The objective of this study is, among others, to analyze the R&D efforts that resulted in Application and Publishing of patents by official organizations, such as: The United States Patent and Trademark Office - USPTO; The European Patent Office - EPO, and the Instituto Nacional (Brazilian) de Propriedade Industrial - INPI, on 'Second Generation Ethanol'. In addition, it will validate whether these efforts are impacting the competitive power among countries and patent applicant firms. After having searched and analyzed data from the aforementioned bureaux, calculations were made both on the application and publishing of patents about lignocellulosic bioethanol using the Herfindahl Hirschman Index - HHI and the Concentration Ratio - CR4, which are traditionally applied by regulating authorities to test antitrust risk for merger and acquisitions between parties in a certain market. This method allows evaluators to measure their competitiveness level / market concentration between enterprises during mergers, ramp-up, asset-buying or asset-selling processes. Mainly, if there is a risk that patent applicants have the possibility of controlling a market in the short-term, or if there is a risk of racing to negotiate royalties of the event in inventive new technologies which improve efficiency in the production of advanced ethanol. According to data published in the U.S. only a handful of companies are responsible for a high concentration of research efforts measured by the number of patent applications related to lignocellulosic bioethanol in North American enterprises. The success of those efforts, considering the total published patents, does not show concentration either in the USA or in the European Union. In Brazil there are not yet published patents shown on Lignocellulosic Bioethanol, and only one Brazilian firm has a published patent in the USA (USPTO). These results suggest that scientific research investments in Brazil is only producing scientific articles, papers, and academic / scientific degrees rather than publishing patents in specialized bureaux which would enable firms to capitalize on their inventions of methods, processes and formulations, abroad or domestically. This may mean either low research effort of this type of ethanol origination, or an asset loss by author / firm by not having the due compensation including human, intellectual and financial resources. The results of this study contribute to the discussion on the growing demand for production and consolidated supply chain of renewable energy sources, such as advanced ethanol based upon sugarcane by-product (bagasse), under marketable costs as an incremental raw material in the near future. The conclusions of this study will indicate the need of improvement on the production of applied knowledge and in focused efforts to guarantee intellectual property that contemplates asset return with royalties