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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/solid-state-fermentation-moisture-control-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Updated 2026Solid-State Fermentation Moisture Control Patents: Who Holds the Claims
- 70.2% concentration. The top 5 of 55 ranked assignees together hold 172 of the 245 records in scope — 70.2% of the field sits with a small group.
- Filing has cooled from its 2017 peak. Published filings ran 45 in 2017 and fell to 7 by 2024, a -53% change between 2021 and 2024 for the leading filer's home category.
- Bioreactor and water-treatment classes lag microbiology. C12M bioreactor apparatus (26.5%) and C02F water treatment (13.9%) trail C12N microorganism claims (83.7%), leaving process-hardware claims comparatively open.
245
Published Records
70%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-53%
Filing Growth 2021→2024
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Filing growth compares 2021 (15 records) with 2024 (7) — 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 245 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
Published byPatsnap Research··6 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
Solid-state fermentation moisture control governs how water activity, humidified air and drying rate are managed inside a solid substrate bed — the variable that most often determines whether a fungal or bacterial culture thrives or stalls. This landscape pulls 245 published records filed between 2015 and 2026 that combine solid-state or solid substrate fermentation language with moisture-specific terms — water activity, moisture gradient, humidified air, water addition, drying rate or moisture sensor — inside the microorganism, bioreactor and fermentation IPC classes (C12P1/00, C12M1/16, C12N1/14).
Because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one or two years in any chart will read lower than the true filing volume; treat 2025 and 2026 as still filling in rather than as a genuine drop.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solid-State Fermentation Moisture Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 245-record corpus: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the records actually sit in.
Filing trend
Published filings peaked at 45 in 2017 and had fallen to 7 by 2024, the last year in the series that can be read as complete; the -53% move from 2021 (15) to 2024 (7) is the growth figure the hero card carries, and 2025-2026 figures are not yet complete due to publication lag.
IPC composition
C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering) touches 83.7% of the 245 records, with C12R indexing 42.0% and C12M bioreactor apparatus at 26.5%. A01N biocide/agrochemical claims (19.6%), A23L food applications (13.9%) and C02F water treatment (13.9%) show the field's downstream applications are claimed far less densely than the core microbiology, and C05F fertiliser use sits lowest at 5.7%.
Shares are the percentage of the 245 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solid-State Fermentation Moisture Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Representative filing and most-cited prior art
Representative record
Producing fungal spores by solid-state fermentation (US20240060034A1)
THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON
A method of producing fungal spores utilizing solid-state fermentation (SSF), combining fungal spores and a solid substrate in a fermentation vessel, subjecting the culture to conditions targeted at further spore production relative to cell growth, and collecting the resulting spores.Filed by The University of Akron; published 2024-02-22.
Most-cited records in this corpus
| # | 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 | US6664095B1 | Solid state fermentation | 67 |
| 5 | WO2010032260A1 | Stacked basket bioreactor for solid state fermentation | 39 |
| 6 | WO2019089730A1 | Matrix fermentation systems and methods for producing microbe-based products | 33 |
| 7 | US9090884B2 | Formulations of viable microorganisms and their methods of production and use | 31 |
| 8 | US10577579B2 | Filamentous fungal biomats, methods of their production and methods of their use | 23 |
| 9 | US10590379B2 | Filamentous fungal biomats, methods of their production and methods of their use | 23 |
| 10 | US10533155B2 | Filamentous fungal biomats, methods of their production and methods of their use | 23 |
Citation counts reflect influence inside this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; they are not a measure of current commercial importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solid-State Fermentation Moisture Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Read together, the concentration, trend and citation data point to a field where core microbiology claims are dense and hardware/downstream claims are comparatively open.
Concentration
70.2%
of 245 records
The field is held by a small group
The top 5 of 55 ranked assignees hold 172 of the 245 records in scope, and the top 10 extend that to 87.3%. A new entrant is filing directly against a dense cluster rather than into open ground.
Top 10 = 214 records
Trend
-53%
2021 to 2024
Filing has pulled back from its 2017 peak
Published filings ran as high as 45 in 2017; the 2021-2024 span shows a -53% move (15 to 7). Given the 18-month publication lag, 2025-2026 counts are not yet a reliable read on current activity.
Peak year: 2017
Technology mix
83.7%
C12N share of records
Microbiology claims dominate, hardware claims trail
C12N microorganism claims touch 83.7% of the 245 records, while C12M bioreactor apparatus sits at 26.5% and C02F water/wastewater treatment at 13.9%. The gap between the two is where moisture-control hardware and water-management process claims remain comparatively thin.
C12M: 26.5% · C02F: 13.9%
Filing geography
63
US-filed records
Filing is concentrated in the US, EPO and PCT routes
The United States leads receiving offices with 63 records, ahead of the EPO (29) and WIPO/PCT (26). Australia, India and Singapore each carry a smaller but non-trivial share, suggesting secondary filing strategy rather than a single-jurisdiction play.
EPO: 29 · PCT: 26
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to solid-state fermentation moisture control, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solid-State Fermentation Moisture Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and where the claim space opens up
A short list of assignees accounts for most of the corpus, but recent-year momentum has cooled across the leading filers, and several moisture-control sub-areas remain lightly claimed.
Leader
97
records
One filer sits well ahead of the field
The leading assignee holds 97 records against a fifth-place figure of 15 and a tenth-place figure of 6 — a steep drop-off that marks this as a leader-and-long-tail structure rather than an evenly split field.
5th place: 15 · 10th place: 6
Momentum
0
latest-year filings, leading assignees
Recent-year filing has gone quiet across the top names
Every assignee tracked for recent-year momentum shows zero filings in the latest year, including the corpus leader. Given the publication lag, this reads as incomplete data rather than confirmed withdrawal from the space, but it is worth watching before assuming continued dominance.
Momentum tracked across leading filers
Collaboration
18
co-filed records, strongest pair
Co-assignment is rare and concentrated in one pairing
Only 10 co-assignee pairs appear in the corpus. The strongest, a government-research and federal-agency pairing, accounts for 18 co-filed records; the next strongest pairs each carry just 3.
10 co-assignee pairs total
Recent-year filing momentum
| 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 | — |
| Locus Agriculture IP Co LLC | 0 | — |
| Green Spot Tech SAS | 0 | — |
| Locus IP Co LLC | 0 | — |
| The University of Akron | 0 | -100% |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solid-State Fermentation Moisture Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific next steps depending on whether the goal is freedom-to-operate, a filing strategy, or scouting acquisition targets.
Check freedom-to-operate against the leader's portfolio
With one assignee holding 97 of 245 records, any new filing in core microbiology claims should be checked against that portfolio specifically rather than the field average.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in Eureka →Draft into the hardware and water-management gap
C12M bioreactor apparatus and C02F water-treatment classes trail C12N microbiology claims by a wide margin, suggesting moisture-control hardware claims have more room to stand independently.
Explore white space in Eureka →Revisit the trend once 2025-2026 fully publish
Because publication lags filing by about 18 months, the apparent slowdown after 2021 should be re-checked once the most recent two years finish publishing.
Track filing trends in Eureka →Source: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solid-State Fermentation Moisture Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
One assignee leads the ranked field with 97 of the 245 records in scope, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 15 and the tenth-place holder at 6. The top 5 of the 55 ranked assignees together hold 70.2% of all records, and the top 10 extend that to 87.3%. This is a leader-and-long-tail structure: a new entrant should expect to file directly against the leader's claims rather than into open ground, particularly in core microbiology categories.
Filing peaked at 45 published records in 2017 and had fallen to 7 by 2024, a -53% move over the 2021-2024 span. However, publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 and 2026 figures in any chart are understated and should not yet be read as continued decline. The safest current read is that filing has pulled back from its 2017 peak, with the most recent trend still to be confirmed.
The corpus centres on C12N (microorganisms and genetic engineering), which touches 83.7% of the 245 records, with C12R indexing 42.0% and C12M bioreactor and enzyme apparatus at 26.5%. Downstream application classes are thinner: A01N biocides sit at 19.6%, A23L food applications and C02F water treatment each at 13.9%, and C05F fertiliser use at 5.7%. Because a single record can carry several classes, these shares add to more than 100% and should not be summed.
The gap between dense microbiology claims (C12N at 83.7%) and thinner hardware or water-management classes (C12M at 26.5%, C02F at 13.9%) suggests moisture-control apparatus and water-management process claims are comparatively under-claimed. Specific sub-areas worth checking include real-time water-activity sensing inside the substrate bed, humidified-air distribution hardware, and moisture-gradient feedback control loops. A freedom-to-operate search restricted to those apparatus classes, rather than the full C12N space, is the more efficient way to confirm open ground.
US20240060034A1, filed by The University of Akron and published 2024-02-22, claims a method of producing fungal spores by solid-state fermentation: combining fungal spores and a solid substrate in a fermentation vessel, then holding the culture under conditions targeted at further spore production rather than cell growth, and collecting the resulting spores. It sits within the broader corpus of 245 records and is one of the more recent representative filings in the space. Anyone working on spore-yield optimisation via solid-state fermentation conditions should review its specific process-condition language before drafting around it.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Solid-State Fermentation Moisture Control covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.