Bio-based Chemicals Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Concentrated at the top. The top 5 assignees hold 50.8% of all 563 records in scope, and the top 10 hold 65.7% — a small group has occupied most of the core claim space.
- Filing has cooled from its peak. Activity peaked in 2021 at 55 records and fell to 26 by 2024, a 53% drop over that span — though 2025-2026 figures are still filling in as publications lag filing.
- Fermentation routes dominate the claims. C12P (fermentation & enzymatic synthesis) and C12N (microorganisms & genetic engineering) each cover roughly a third of all records, far ahead of downstream refining and lubricant classes.
Filing growth compares 2021 (55 records) with 2024 (26) — 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. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 563 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset draws on 563 published records matching bio-based chemicals process language — reaction medium, product selectivity, synthesis route — combined with renewable or biomass-derived chemistry terms. The scope runs from 2015 through the 2026-08-31 data cut-off, capturing both upstream fermentation and genetic-engineering claims and downstream refining, fuel and lubricant applications built on the same feedstocks.
Coverage spans receiving offices in the United States, WIPO's PCT system, Europe, Canada, India and Australia, giving a reasonably global view of where applicants are seeking protection rather than just where the underlying research originates.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 563 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claims.
Filing activity: rise, peak, and pullback
Annual filings climbed from 5 in 2017 to a peak of 55 in 2021, then declined to 26 by 2024 — a 53% fall over that three-year window. Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the 2025 and 2026 counts shown here are still incomplete and should not be read as a continuing decline.
Where the claims sit
Fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (C12P) and microorganism/genetic-engineering claims (C12N) each appear in roughly a third of all 563 records, making biological routes the dominant claim territory. Acyclic and carbocyclic compound chemistry (C07C) and hydrocarbon refining (C10G) follow at meaningfully lower shares, with lubricants (C10M) and fatty oil/wax production (C11B) the thinnest-claimed categories in this set.
Shares are the percentage of the 563 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Bio-based Chemicals Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about bio-based chemicals patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this landscape
Upgrading fusel oil mixtures over heterogeneous catalysts to higher value renewable chemicals
This present disclosure relates to catalytic processes for upgrading crude and/or refined fusel oil mixtures to higher value renewable chemicals, via mixed metal oxide or zeolite catalysts. Disclosed herein are processes passing a vaporized stream of crude and/or refined fusel oils over various mixed metal oxide catalysts, metal doped zeolites, or non-metal doped zeolites and/or metal oxides providing options to valorize fusel oil mixtures to higher value products. Renewable chemicals formed, via these upgrading catalyst platforms, are comprised of, but not limited to, methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK), di-isobutyl ketone (DIBK), isoamylene, and isoprene.Filed by Gevo, Inc. — published 2019-10-10 as US20190308922A1.
View full record| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20080193989A1 | Energy Efficient Methods to Produce Products | 370 |
| 2 | WO2009094485A1 | Methods and organisms for utilizing synthesis gas or other gaseous carbon sources and methanol | 182 |
| 3 | US20110258914A1 | Methods for integrated fast pyrolysis processing of biomass | 153 |
| 4 | WO2011085223A1 | Integrated methods of preparing renewable chemicals | 108 |
| 5 | US20090191593A1 | Methods and organisms for utilizing synthesis gas or other gaseous carbon sources and methanol | 102 |
| 6 | US20110201089A1 | Methods for increasing product yields | 100 |
| 7 | US20110172475A1 | Integrated methods of preparing renewable chemicals | 83 |
| 8 | US8425633B2 | Methods for integrated fast pyrolysis processing of biomass | 80 |
| 9 | US20120329113A1 | Microorganisms for Producing 1,3-Butanediol and Methods Related Thereto | 77 |
| 10 | US20110288352A1 | Renewable jet fuel blendstock from isobutanol | 76 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of historical impact rather than current commercial weight.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Reading the concentration, the technology mix and the citation pattern together points to where claim space is occupied and where it is thinner.
A small group holds half the field
Five assignees account for 50.8% of all 563 records, and the top 10 push that to 65.7%. That leaves a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants competing for the remaining share, which suggests new entrants should expect to work around, not through, the leaders' core claims.
Peak filing has passed, for now
Filings rose steadily to a 2021 peak of 55, then fell to 26 by 2024. Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the most recent years in the trend are undercounted and should not be read as the technology losing relevance.
Biological routes lead the claim map
Fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (C12P, 36.6% of records) and microorganism engineering (C12N, 33.0%) outweigh conventional refining chemistry, indicating that biological conversion routes are where most active claiming is happening rather than downstream separation or catalysis steps.
Co-assignee links stay narrow
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in this dataset, with the strongest pairings each showing 12 shared filings — a sign that most work here is filed by single organisations rather than joint ventures or research consortia.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to bio-based chemicals patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| BURGARD ANTHONY P | SUN JUN | 12 |
| BURGARD ANTHONY P | PHARKYA PRITI | 12 |
| BURGARD ANTHONY P | OSTERHOUT ROBIN E | 12 |
| Genomatica, Inc. | SUN JUN | 8 |
| Genomatica, Inc. | PHARKYA PRITI | 8 |
| Genomatica, Inc. | OSTERHOUT ROBIN E | 8 |
| Genomatica, Inc. | BURGARD ANTHONY P | 8 |
| BURGARD ANTHONY P | BURK MARK J | 6 |
The densest inventor pairings in this dataset cluster around a small number of individuals credited across the leading assignee's fermentation and metabolic-engineering filings.
Who is filing, and where the field is thinning
The ranked leaders hold the bulk of the volume, but recent-year momentum shows even top filers slowing, which is where openings tend to appear.
One filer sits well ahead of the field
The top-ranked assignee in this dataset holds 96 records, well clear of fifth place at 35 and tenth place at 14 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-and-long-tail field rather than an evenly split one.
Even active filers are pulling back
Several of the most established assignees in this dataset show flat or declining recent-year filing, including drops of -75% and -100% year over year among named leaders — consistent with the broader post-2021 pullback in the trend data.
Collaboration is concentrated, not broad
The strongest co-assignee relationships in this dataset each reach 12 shared filings, all tied to inventors within the same leading organisation rather than spread across separate companies, pointing to internally coordinated R&D rather than cross-company joint filing.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BASF SE | 1 | -75% |
| Duke University | 0 | — |
| Neste Oyj | 0 | -100% |
| Genomatica, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Swedish Biofuels AB | 0 | — |
| Gevo, Inc. | 0 | — |
| The Regents of the University of California | 0 | -100% |
| SolarClean Fuels LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with occupied core claims and a thinner periphery. The next steps depend on whether you are scoping freedom-to-operate or looking for filing openings.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leaders
With 65.7% of records held by the top 10 assignees, a new filing in fermentation or genetic-engineering routes should be checked against the leading filers' claim scope before drafting.
Explore assignee claims in EurekaProbe the under-claimed branches
Lubricant-grade esters, fatty oil valorisation and fusel-oil upgrading carry lower record counts than the core fermentation classes, which may leave room for narrower, defensible claims.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions on bio-based chemicals patents
This dataset ranks 100 companies by record count, with the leading assignee holding 96 of the 563 records in scope. The top 5 assignees together account for 50.8% of all records, and the top 10 account for 65.7%, showing a field where a small group of filers controls most of the core claim space. Beyond that group, filing activity spreads across a long tail of companies with far fewer records each, so a full freedom-to-operate check needs to look at both the leaders and any close-adjacent filers working the same IPC classes.
Filing rose from 5 records in 2017 to a peak of 55 in 2021, then fell to 26 by 2024, a 53% decline over that three-year span. Publication typically lags actual filing by around 18 months, so the 2025 and 2026 figures in this dataset are still incomplete and understate real activity. Based on the complete years available, the honest read is a post-2021 pullback rather than a technology in permanent decline.
Fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (IPC class C12P) appears in 36.6% of the 563 records, and microorganism and genetic-engineering claims (C12N) appear in 33.0%, making biological conversion routes the two most heavily claimed areas. Acyclic and carbocyclic compound chemistry (C07C) and hydrocarbon oil refining (C10G) follow at lower shares. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these percentages add up to more than 100% and should be read as class-level coverage, not a breakdown of the whole field.
US20190308922A1, assigned to Gevo, Inc. and published in 2019, covers catalytic processes for upgrading crude or refined fusel oil mixtures into higher-value renewable chemicals such as methyl isobutyl ketone, di-isobutyl ketone, isoamylene and isoprene using mixed metal oxide or zeolite catalysts. Anyone working on catalytic upgrading of fusel oil streams to those specific product classes needs to review this filing's claim scope closely. It does not, on its own, block fermentation-stage or feedstock-generation work upstream of the fusel oil intermediate.
Relative to the dominant fermentation and genetic-engineering classes, categories such as lubricants (C10M, 5.0% of records) and fatty oil and wax production (C11B, 4.3% of records) carry noticeably lower filing density in this dataset. Catalytic upgrading of mixed feedstock streams, such as fusel oil valorisation, also shows a narrower set of filers relative to its citation influence. These lower-density branches are worth a closer novelty search rather than an assumption of open space, since low volume can also reflect a harder technical problem rather than an ignored one.
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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.