Acetogenic Bacteria Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- One assignee dominates the ranking. the leader holds 90 records against a fifth-place count of 8 and a tenth-place count of 5, a steep drop-off rather than a gradual one.
- Filing kept climbing through the mid-2020s. 2021 to 2024 shows +25% growth, with 2022 the peak year so far at 24 records — treat 2025 onward as still filling in.
- Claims cluster almost entirely in fermentation and organism engineering. C12P and C12N together cover the vast majority of the 173 records, leaving feed, medicinal and polymer-adjacent uses comparatively open.
Filing growth compares 2021 (4 records) with 2024 (5) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks 173 published records at the intersection of acetogenic bacteria or microorganisms and stress-tolerance mechanisms — solvent tolerance, acid tolerance, osmotic and oxidative stress, heat shock and membrane stability — filtered to the fermentation and microorganism classification codes C12N1/20, C12P7/40 and C12Q1/04. The scope favours organisms engineered or selected to keep producing under industrially relevant stress, rather than acetogen biology in general.
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the final one to two years in any chart will look thinner than the underlying filing activity actually was.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 173-record set: how filing activity moved year over year, and which classification codes carry the claim volume.
Filing trend: steady build to a 2022 peak
Annual filings rose from 3 in 2017 to a peak of 24 in 2022. The 2021-to-2024 span shows +25% growth (4 to 5), the most recent period that can be read as a complete trend given publication lag; years after 2024 will fill in as more families publish.
IPC composition: fermentation-heavy, with thin secondary branches
C12P (fermentation and enzymatic synthesis) appears in 96.0% of the 173 records and C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) in 86.7%, confirming this is overwhelmingly a fermentation-process and organism-engineering field. Secondary classes — C12R, C08F, A61K, A23K, C07C, C07K — each sit at 7.5% or below, meaning downstream application claims (feed, medicinal, polymer precursor) are filed far less densely than the core organism and process claims.
Shares are the percentage of the 173 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Acetogenic Bacteria Stress Tolerance with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about acetogenic bacteria stress tolerance and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a recent filing
Systems, methods, processes, and microorganisms for the production of lipids from carbonaceous feedstock and industrial effluents (WO2026080418A1)
Describes high-yield lipid production through new strains developed by combining adapted laboratory evolution, genetic engineering and bioprocess engineering: a first anaerobic microbial culture converts carbon dioxide and hydrogen into a carbonaceous feedstock, which then feeds a second aerobic culture for lipid production.Filed by Cemvita Factory; published 2026-04-16, near the current data cut-off, so its citation record is still forming.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2012135789A2 | Microorganisms for producing methacrylic acid and methacrylate esters and methods related thereto | 131 |
| 2 | US20130065279A1 | Microorganisms for producing methacrylic acid and methacrylate esters and methods related thereto | 93 |
| 3 | WO2012018624A2 | Microorganisms and methods for the biosynthesis of aromatics, 2,4-pentadienoate and 1,3-butadiene | 93 |
| 4 | WO2017066498A1 | Genetically engineered bacterium comprising energy-generating fermentation pathway | 81 |
| 5 | WO2011071682A1 | Methods and organisms for converting synthesis gas or other gaseous carbon sources and methanol to 1,3-butane… | 64 |
| 6 | WO2012177710A1 | Microorganisms for producing butadiene and methods related thereto | 55 |
| 7 | WO2007121100A2 | Compositions and methods for producing fermentation products and residuals | 52 |
| 8 | US8048661B2 | Microbial organisms comprising exogenous nucleic acids encoding reductive TCA pathway enzymes | 42 |
| 9 | US8445244B2 | Methods for increasing product yields | 27 |
| 10 | US20070243235A1 | Compositions and methods for producing fermentation products and residuals | 27 |
Citation counts favour older publications simply because they have had longer to accumulate citations; read them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not of current commercial weight.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs of the trend, composition and citation data, framed for someone deciding where to file next.
Growth held through the most recent complete years
The field grew from 4 filings in 2021 to 5 in 2024, on top of a 2022 peak of 24 records for the year. That is sustained rather than one-off activity, and it argues against reading the thinner 2025-2026 counts as a slowdown — those years are still publishing.
Fermentation process claims dominate the code map
C12P and C12N between them touch nearly every record in scope. Secondary codes like A23K (animal feed) and A61K (medicinal preparations) sit under 6%, which is a signal of where application-side claims have not yet been filed densely, not a signal that those uses lack demand.
The oldest heavy-hitters still anchor the citation graph
The most-cited records in this set date to the early 2010s methacrylate and butadiene biosynthesis work, cited well over 90 times each. New entrants should expect examiners to cite these as foundational prior art regardless of how narrow a new stress-tolerance claim is.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to acetogenic bacteria stress tolerance, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranking covers 23 companies as returned by the data endpoint — not a top-50 or top-100 cut — and the gap between first and fifth place is wide enough to matter for competitive positioning.
One assignee holds the largest single block of records
The top-ranked assignee's 90 records dwarf the fifth-place count of 8 and the tenth-place count of 5. That gap suggests a single organisation built out a broad portfolio early, while everyone else filed in smaller, more targeted clusters.
Most of the ranked field files in single digits
Beyond the leader, filing counts drop quickly: fifth place sits at 8, tenth place at 5. This is a long tail of narrower players rather than a second concentrated tier, which typically means freedom to operate is better outside the leader's core claims.
Inventor pairings cluster tightly around a few names
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in this landscape, and the strongest pairings repeat the same small group of individual inventors rather than spreading across many institutions. That points to a concentrated internal team rather than a broad industry collaboration network.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Genomatica, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| LanzaTech New Zealand Ltd | 0 | — |
| LanzaTech, Inc. | 0 | — |
| LANZATECH NZ INC | 0 | — |
| PHARKYA PRITI | 0 | — |
| BURGARD ANTHONY P | 0 | — |
| OSTERHOUT ROBIN E | 0 | — |
| Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
The trend and composition data point to a field with one dominant filer and several thin secondary branches; the next steps depend on which side of that line you're working from.
Check freedom to operate against the leader's block
With 90 records against a fifth-place count of 8, the leading assignee's claims are the first thing to clear before filing anything close to core fermentation-process or organism-engineering claims.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaProbe the under-claimed application branches
A23K, A61K, C07C and C07K overlaps all sit under 6% of the 173 records, which is where narrower, application-specific claims are more likely to find open space.
Explore white space in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked field with 90 records, far ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 8 and the tenth-ranked at 5. This is a steep concentration at the top rather than a gradual decline, meaning most competitive risk in this space comes from a single organisation's portfolio. Anyone filing new claims in fermentation-process or organism-engineering space should review that leader's claims first, since the gap to the rest of the ranked field is large.
Yes, through the most recent years that can be read reliably. Filings grew from 4 in 2021 to 5 in 2024, a 25% increase over that span, with an overall peak of 24 records in 2022. Counts for 2025 and 2026 look lower, but that reflects publication lag of roughly 18 months rather than an actual slowdown in filing.
The dataset is filtered to acetogenic bacteria or microorganisms combined with stress mechanisms such as solvent tolerance, acid tolerance, osmotic and oxidative stress, heat shock and membrane stability, under fermentation and microorganism classification codes. In practice, 96.0% of the 173 records carry a C12P fermentation-process classification and 86.7% carry a C12N microorganism/genetic-engineering classification, so the bulk of claim activity is process- and organism-level rather than downstream application claims.
Secondary classification codes carry far fewer records than the core fermentation and organism codes: C08F (polymer precursors), A61K (medicinal preparations), A23K (animal feed), C07C and C07K each sit at 7.5% or below of the 173 records. That does not mean these applications lack commercial interest; it means claim density there is thinner, which is where a narrower, application-specific filing is more likely to clear prior art cleanly.
Citation counts accumulate over time, so older publications such as the methacrylate-ester and aromatics biosynthesis records naturally out-cite recent filings simply by having been available longer for others to cite. A high citation count signals that a record has been influential as prior art within this corpus, not that its claims are more commercially relevant today. Recent filings, including the most current record in this set, have not had time to accumulate comparable citation counts.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.