CIPO Releases Patent Landscape Report for the Shale Oil and Gas Sub-sector of the Petroleum Industry

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CIPO Releases Patent Landscape Report for the Shale Oil and Gas Sub-sector of the Petroleum Industry

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has released a Patent Landscape Report – Shale Oil and Gas.

The Report covers technologies used as part of the extraction and refining processes in the shale oil and gas subsector of the oil and gas sector and examines 3,986 patent families filed between 2000 and 2012.

Some of the highlights of the Report include:

  • The top five applicants account for 12% of the total patenting activity worldwide related to shale oil and gas
  • China and the United States account for 66% of all filings
  • Halliburton and Schlumberger are active in technologies related to “drilling” and “well formation”
  • The Japanese companies Idemitsu, JX Nippon and Cosmo Oil Co. are all active in the area of “desulfurization”
  • The top three International companies in terms of patent applications filed are Sinopec (China), JX Nippon Oil and Energy Corp. (Japan) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (United States)
  • The top three Canadian-based companies in terms of patent applications filed are Trican Well Services Ltd., Envirollea Inc. and GASFRAC Energy Services Inc.
  • Priority filings for shale oil and gas patent families experienced a 188% increase in the number of filings between 2000 and 2012
  • Patent landscape maps produced by Thomson Innovation’s ThemeScape mapping tool indicate areas of investigation based on relative frequencies of keyword clusters appearing in patent families and the top patent applicants concentrated in these areas
  • Collaboration maps produced by analysis of patent families based on linkages of companies via joint ownership of patent applications indicate the extent of collaboration between specific companies for the top patent applicants
  • The top 20 inventors work for the top 10 patent applicants in China, Japan and the United States
  • A total of 171 Canada-based applicants have generated 100 patent families between 2000 to 2012
  • A total of 284 patent applications were filed at CIPO between 2000 to 2012 with the top applicants being Halliburton, Exxon Mobil, and M-I LLC

The conclusion of the Report states that shale oil and gas will be an important part of the worldwide energy story for the coming decades. Innovation will play a key role in maximizing what is extracted from these non-traditional oil and gas sources while minimizing the costs and environmental impact of the processes.

For more information, please contact Mark Roach at mark.roach@hicksip.com.