Solid-State Fermentation Aeration Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- 46.2% concentration. The top 5 of 100 ranked assignees hold 150 of the 325 records in scope — a genuinely concentrated core, not a diffuse field.
- Filing is still climbing, not fading. Filings rose 46% from 2021 (13) to 2024 (19), the last year publication lag lets us treat as complete.
- Microorganism claims dominate the apparatus layer. C12N appears on 77.5% of records versus 41.5% for C12M bioreactor apparatus — the strain and culture side is far more crowded than the hardware side.
Filing growth compares 2021 (13 records) with 2024 (19) — 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 325 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
Solid-state fermentation (SSF) aeration control sits at the intersection of bioprocess engineering and microbial strain work: patents here cover how oxygen and gas move through a packed solid substrate bed, how bed porosity is managed, and how exhaust oxygen or aeration rate is measured and controlled during fermentation. The 325 records in scope were pulled using a search string that pairs SSF terminology with airflow, oxygen supply, gas distribution, bed porosity and aeration-rate language, filtered to C12P1/00, C12M1/16 and C12N1/14.
The set spans filings from 2015 through the 2026 data cut-off, with United States, EPO, WIPO/PCT, Australian, Indian and Canadian receiving offices all represented. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years understate real filing activity; 2024 is the newest year treated here as complete.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 325 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and how records distribute across IPC subclasses when a single record can carry more than one class.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings peaked at 55 in 2017, then settled into a lower but rebuilding band; 2021 to 2024 shows a 46% increase, from 13 to 19 records, the clearest recent growth signal the data supports.
IPC subclass distribution
C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) touches 77.5% of the 325 records, well ahead of C12M bioreactor apparatus at 41.5% and C12R microorganism indexing at 36.3%. Fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (C12P) sits at 19.7%, with water treatment, agrochemical and food-related classes trailing further behind.
Shares are the percentage of the 325 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Solid-State Fermentation Aeration Control with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about solid-state fermentation aeration control and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited prior art and a recent representative filing
Producing fungal spores by solid-state fermentation (US20240060034A1)
Filed by The University of Akron and published 2024-02-22, this filing describes combining fungal spores and a solid substrate in a solid-state fermentation vessel, then holding the culture under conditions tuned for targeted further spore production rather than simple cell growth, before collecting the resulting spores.Abstract condensed from the original filing for readability.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2017151684A1 | Filamentous fungal biomats, methods of their production and methods of their use | 102 |
| 2 | US20090117633A1 | Process of Producing Ethanol Using Starch with Enzymes Generated Through Solid State Culture | 90 |
| 3 | US6197573B1 | Solid state fermentation | 85 |
| 4 | US6620614B1 | Solid-state fermenter and method for solid-state fermentation | 73 |
| 5 | US6664095B1 | Solid state fermentation | 67 |
| 6 | US20100196994A1 | Fungi cultivation on alcohol fermentation stillage for useful products and energy savings | 59 |
| 7 | US20090162892A1 | Fermentative production of fine chemicals | 43 |
| 8 | WO2010032260A1 | Stacked basket bioreactor for solid state fermentation | 39 |
| 9 | WO2019089730A1 | Matrix fermentation systems and methods for producing microbe-based products | 33 |
| 10 | US5288634A | Method of increasing the percentage of viable dried spores of a fungus | 32 |
Citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references; treat them as a signal of influence within this searched corpus, not as a ranking of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Four readings of the same 325-record set, each pointing at a different decision: where the claim density already sits, where growth is real, and where citation weight comes from.
A concentrated core, not a level field
The leading assignee alone accounts for 80 records, with fifth place at 14 and tenth at 9 — a steep drop-off that marks a small group of entities controlling the bulk of the documented claim space.
Momentum is rebuilding after the 2017 peak
Filings peaked at 55 in 2017 and have not returned to that level, but the 2021-2024 window shows real rebuilding growth from 13 to 19 records — the most recent period the data lets us call complete.
Strain and culture claims outnumber apparatus claims
Microorganism and genetic engineering claims (C12N) touch more than three-quarters of records, while bioreactor and enzyme apparatus claims (C12M) touch under half — apparatus-level aeration hardware is the thinner claim layer.
Collaboration is rare and mostly institutional
Only 9 co-assignee pairs appear across the corpus, the strongest linking a national agricultural research body with a government health agency at 18 shared records — most filers act alone rather than jointly.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to solid-state fermentation aeration control, with the prior art for and against each one.
Assignee landscape and where the gaps sit
The ranked list covers 100 assignees across the 325 records in scope. It is not a top-50 or top-100 industry list — it is the complete ranking the dataset returns, and it shows a sharp concentration at the top followed by a long tail of single- or few-filing entrants.
One filer sets the pace
The leading assignee's 80 records dwarf the fifth-place total of 14, showing that a single organisation has built a substantially larger position than any peer in this dataset.
A tight second tier
Places five through ten cluster closely together, from 14 down to 9 records, suggesting a second tier of active but not dominant filers rather than a sharp cliff.
Recent-year activity has gone quiet across the leaders
Every assignee tracked for recent momentum, including the top-ranked filer, shows zero records in the latest year — consistent with publication lag rather than an actual pullback, since 2024 filings are only now starting to publish.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| The Fynder Group Inc | 0 | -100% |
| Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria (EMBRAPA) | 0 | — |
| Sustainable Bioproducts Inc | 0 | — |
| The Government of the United States of America as represented by the Secretary, Department of Health & Human Services | 0 | — |
| Verdera | 0 | — |
| Novonesis Plant Biosolutions AS | 0 | — |
| The University of Akron | 0 | -100% |
| Novozymes Biologicals Inc | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a concentrated core of apparatus and strain claims with a thinner, more open layer around sensing and gas-distribution hardware. The next step is turning that read into a filing or freedom-to-operate decision specific to your own claim set.
Map your own claims against the core
Run your draft claims against the C12N/C12M/C12P concentration shown here to see whether you are filing into the dense core or the thinner apparatus layer.
Explore in EurekaTrack the leading assignees' recent filings
Zero recent-year momentum across the top filers likely reflects publication lag rather than a slowdown — worth monitoring as 2025-2026 filings publish.
Set up monitoring in EurekaPressure-test white space claims
Bed porosity sensing and gas distribution manifold design show thinner filing density than the microorganism core — validate whether that gap is real freedom-to-operate before drafting.
Analyse white space in EurekaCommon questions on this landscape
One assignee leads with 80 of the 325 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-ranked assignee at 14. The top 5 assignees together hold 150 records, or 46.2% of all 325 records, meaning a small group controls close to half of the documented claim space. Beyond the top 10, which together hold 62.5% of records, the ranking spreads into a long tail of assignees with only a handful of filings each.
Filings peaked at 55 in 2017 and have not returned to that level since, but the more recent trend is upward: 2021 to 2024 shows a 46% increase, from 13 to 19 records. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, 2025 and 2026 figures in the dataset are still incomplete and should not be read as a slowdown. Treat 2024 as the most recent year with a reliable count.
Microorganism and genetic engineering claims under IPC class C12N appear on 77.5% of the 325 records, making it by far the most heavily claimed area. Bioreactor and enzyme apparatus claims (C12M) follow at 41.5%, and microorganism indexing (C12R) at 36.3%. Fermentation and enzymatic synthesis (C12P), water treatment (C02F), agrochemicals (A01N) and food-related classes (A23L, A23J) each cover a smaller share, since records can carry multiple classes and these shares are calculated against the same 325-record total.
The apparatus layer — bed porosity sensing, gas distribution manifold design and exhaust-oxygen feedback control — carries noticeably fewer claims than the microorganism and strain layer that dominates the corpus. Overlap zones such as aeration control tied to protein or food-grade outputs, or to wastewater treatment applications, also show thinner filing density than the C12N core. These are areas where a well-drafted apparatus or control-method claim is less likely to run into dense prior art, though a freedom-to-operate check against the specific leading assignees is still warranted.
The most-cited records in this corpus, including a filamentous fungal biomat patent cited 102 times and an ethanol-via-solid-state-culture patent cited 90 times, date from the 2000s and 2010s, reflecting how citation counts favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate references. This means high citation counts are a signal of historical influence within the searched corpus rather than an indicator of which patents matter most for current freedom-to-operate decisions. Newer filings, such as the 2024 University of Akron spore-production patent, have not yet 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.