Bryophytes: a patent prospecting Almira Rosa de Menezes Neta, Esdras Santos Macedo, Jhonyd Jhonata de Oliveira Marmo, Michely Correia Diniz

Abstract

Bryophytes form the first group of plants to conquer the terrestrial environment, but still have a high dependence on water for sexual reproduction and form the second largest group of plants. The objective of this work was to carry out a survey on patent deposits related to bioprospecting and innovation in the use of bryophytes. Prospecting was carried out in accordance with patent applications filed in five different national and international databases: at the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI); the European Patent Office (EPO); the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); in LENS; and Google Patents. Several patents were found involving the term bryophyte for national banks, as well as bryophyte for international banks, predominantly in Google Patents (318), then in LENS (119), EPO (44), WIPO (43), INPI (1) . With the search involving the term bryophytes for national banks and bryophytes for international banks, we obtained the following results for the number of patents: in Google Patents (311), in LENS (119), WIPO (35), EPO (19), and in INPI (1). It is notable that in recent years there has been an increase in the accounting for patent applications made in international databases, made mainly by developed countries, such as China, which concentrates the largest number of patents. Brazil has a rich biodiversity, it was expected that there would be a greater interest in development and knowledge in this type of research, in view of a greater scope for the effective and sustainable use of bryophytes