Evolution of World and Brazilian Markets for Enzymes Produced by Solid-state Fermentation: A Patent Analysis

The use of enzymes in various industrial processes has become increasingly frequent. When added to productive processes, it can accelerate reactions and generate a number of new products. The solid state fermentation (SSF), among other applications, has been employed also to obtain enzymes.

The purpose of this prospection was to map registered patent documents about enzymes production by this type of fermentation in the world, identify the most obtained enzymes with patent documents and compilate information about the world and Brazilian enzyme markets.

The experimental design was carried out by the keyword-driven scope through the advanced search in the Espacenet database European Patent Office (EPO). The keywords selected were solid-state fermentation and the International Patent Classification code, C12N9 (enzymes; proenzymes), for prospecting of interest.

In 2012, there was the higher number of registered patents (12). China holds 84% of deposited patents. Among the types of depositors, 54% of the selected patent documents were deposited by universities and institutes, and 44% by companies. 76.5% of the evaluated patents used fungi as enzyme producer. Analyzing the enzymes obtained in the registered patents, it is verified that the majority belongs to the group of carbohydrases with 43%, followed by proteases (25%), which are also the two classes of enzymes most commercialized in the market.

China holds the majority of the registered patents but North America gets the largest global enzyme market revenue followed by Europe and Pacific Asia. Carbohydrases were the most commercialized enzymes and with the highest number of patents registered. Among the carbohydrases, cellulases, xylanases and amylases are the most frequent in patent registration while being fungi produced.