Difference between revisions of "Team:Brasil-USP/Entrepreneurship"
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<h2>Patent</h2> | <h2>Patent</h2> | ||
<p> | <p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <br> | ||
| + | <b><font color=#04A872><font size=5>Why are we applying a patent?</b></font></font><br/> | ||
| + | </br> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p> Protecting our technology is extremely important to enrich our startup value and attract stakeholders. A patent will ensure that our innovative technology remains competitive in the market comparing to current uses of waste tires. The innovation developed by our team is fully-patentable, once these types of enzymes have never been used in this combination.</p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | <p><b><font color=#04A872><font size=5>What can be patented in biotechnology area?</b></font></font> | ||
| + | </p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p> As we established to turn our idea into a startup, numerous questions about how to protect our invention emerged. In this sense, we researched about patentable materials and the main differences between countries<sup>1</sup></p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p><center><b>Table 1.</b> Patentable materials in different countries.<sup>1</sup></center> | ||
| + | </p> | ||
| + | <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2015/3/3f/Brasil-USP-tabela-patent-certa.png" class="centeredImage" style="height: 950px;" /><br/> | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | <p> The United States has a complete patent system, in which you can protect almost anything. Unfortunately, in our country - Brazil - the situation is quite different, as can be seen in Table 1. Analyzing theses differences, and having in mind that our startup will be placed in Brazil, we planned the approach in our project’s protection. | ||
| + | </p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p><b><font color=#04A872><font size=5>What are we protecting?</b></font></font> | ||
| + | </p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p> As was shown on the previous section, Brazil grants only a few types of patents. In this scope, our team decided to develop different patents for each step of the project, which are showed in detail below. For example, in our country it is not allowed to protect a wild type microorganism, then, in the devulcanization process we will be protecting the optimization parameters in industrial scale. | ||
| + | </p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2015/9/9a/Brasil-USP-patent-figure-1.png" class="centeredImage" style="height: 260px;" /> | ||
| + | <p><center><b>Figure 1.</b> Processes and patents.</center> | ||
| + | </p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p><b><font color=#04A872><font size=5>How are we protecting?</b></font></font> | ||
| + | </p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p> Our strategy about the intellectual property protection was decided with the assistance of <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Brasil-USP/Practices/USPInovacao" target="_blank">USP Innovationn Agency</a>, a part of the university designated to assist its faculty and students mainly in patent deposits. They informed us that the brazilian government allows a grace period after the first publication of the research. In this sense, a simple publication of the description of the project on the wiki would be sufficient for us to partially protect our intellectual property temporarily. Additionally, they informed us that part of each of the patents proposed will be owned by USP. This happens because, as students of the University, we are human resources of the institution, and therefore, all the research developed by us also belongs to them - and we are considered inventors, not patent direct holders. Another aspect that confirms their ownership on the patents is that we developed all the project in USP laboratories. With that in mind, our startup will license this patent and hopefully develop new technologies in the future as a partner of USP. All the details of how we decided the patent is in this <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Brasil-USP/Practices/USPInovacao" target="_blank">link</a>.<br/> | ||
| + | As stated before, our technology is innovative and fully-patentable. In order to understand the importance of our project we searched for similar patents along with Braskem. Table 2 shows the patents deposited all around the world related to our project, and here we state the differences between their idea and ours. Using the keywords Rubber Oxigenase and triisoprene no results were obtained. For polyisoprene degradation and rubber degradation we have got the following results.</p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p><center><b>Table 2.</b> Patents deposited related to our project and the differences between them.</center> | ||
| + | </p> | ||
| + | <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2015/9/92/Brasil-USP-3-patent.png" class="centeredImage" style="height: 1200px;" /> | ||
| + | <p><font size=2><center>*All patents abstracts was copied directly from the patent description.<p/></font></center> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p><font color=#04A872><font size=5>References</font></font></p> | ||
| + | 1. http://www.inpi.gov.br/; Acessed on 09/12/2015. | ||
</p> | </p> | ||
<a class="manchor" id="USPInnovationAgency"></a> | <a class="manchor" id="USPInnovationAgency"></a> | ||
Revision as of 17:43, 17 September 2015
Entrepreneurship
Why Startup?
Table of contents
Playgrounds, carpets and boots, although creative, together they do not represent not even 1% of scrap tire destination. [1] Every year, over 1 billion tires are manufactured all over the world which is equivalent a (equivalente a 100 milhoes de pessoas em peso). After approximately 3 years, these tires are discarded and new tires are produced, generating a huge amount of scrap tire accumulation. If stored above ground they may create fire hazards, harborage for pests, and aesthetic and property value impacts. However, when waste tires are buried, they consume valuable landfill space.[2] To properly address this residue, many countries, such as United States and Brazil, passed a law designates to tire manufactures to collect and manage the solid residue. [3] Unfortunately, major destination is incineration to generate tire-derived fuel (TFD) broadly used in cement industry for energy. [4] This process generates chemicals proven to be extremely detrimental to human health and environment. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons dioxins, carbon monoxide and sulfur oxides are some examples of carcinogens and toxic released compounds. [5] Specially in Brazil, seventy percent of collected tire is directed to incineration and the other thirty percent are reintroduced in limited markets. In this scenario, our project aim to make up the residue demand through a synthetic biology technology capable of transforming a waste into a high valued product to feed others chemical segments and as a final main product, a clean and sustainable jet-fuel.
Using a wild microorganism isolated from soil, the first step is to remove the sulfur bonds that covers the tire with no pollutant gases emission, generating a more flexible and easy to recycle material. In the second step, we designed an optimized bacterial DNA based system specific for polyisoprene degradation, the main tire component. It is capable of breaking long chains into smaller units that can be used as raw material for other processes. In our third reactor will be performed a single catalytic reaction to produce the jet-fuel. We also intend to use natural rubber from Hevea brasiliensis as renewable source for our fuel production. The remaining products with economic value of the whole process are: high quality raw material to input other industrial segment, jet fuel derived from tire waste, jet fuel derived from natural rubber and devulcanized rubber from tires.
[1] Rubber Manufacturers Association, 2014.
[2] Legislative Environmental Policy Office Study Conducted - Status of and Alternatives for the Management of Waste Tires in Montana, 1998.
[3] Environmental Protection Agency- State Scrap Tire Programs, a quick reference guide, United States, 1993.
[4] United States Environmental Protection Agency - Tire-Derived Fuel, 2005.
[5] Saleh Tawfik A., Gupta VK, Processing Methods - Characteristics and Adsorption Behavior of Tires Derived Carbons: A Review, Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, 2014.
Executive Summary
In this section it will be highlighted the main points about our company.
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Summary
Rubber Biotechnologies is an under development company in recycling rubber waste field that is responding to the need for scrap tires addressment to decrease solid residue accumulation and pollutant gases release. The company project was consolidated in 2015, from Brasil-USP iGEM team and has a biotechnology startup profile. The technology consists on genetically engineered microorganisms based on synthetic biology, capable of degradating rubber.
The Products
Devulcanized rubber
ODTD
Jet-fuel raw material
Manufacturing
NFJKANSKFANKSThe Market
NFJKANSKFANKSFinancing Required
NFJKSNKAS
IP Protection & Legal Issues
Patent
Why are we applying a patent?
Protecting our technology is extremely important to enrich our startup value and attract stakeholders. A patent will ensure that our innovative technology remains competitive in the market comparing to current uses of waste tires. The innovation developed by our team is fully-patentable, once these types of enzymes have never been used in this combination.
What can be patented in biotechnology area?
As we established to turn our idea into a startup, numerous questions about how to protect our invention emerged. In this sense, we researched about patentable materials and the main differences between countries1
The United States has a complete patent system, in which you can protect almost anything. Unfortunately, in our country - Brazil - the situation is quite different, as can be seen in Table 1. Analyzing theses differences, and having in mind that our startup will be placed in Brazil, we planned the approach in our project’s protection.
What are we protecting?
As was shown on the previous section, Brazil grants only a few types of patents. In this scope, our team decided to develop different patents for each step of the project, which are showed in detail below. For example, in our country it is not allowed to protect a wild type microorganism, then, in the devulcanization process we will be protecting the optimization parameters in industrial scale.
How are we protecting?
Our strategy about the intellectual property protection was decided with the assistance of USP Innovationn Agency, a part of the university designated to assist its faculty and students mainly in patent deposits. They informed us that the brazilian government allows a grace period after the first publication of the research. In this sense, a simple publication of the description of the project on the wiki would be sufficient for us to partially protect our intellectual property temporarily. Additionally, they informed us that part of each of the patents proposed will be owned by USP. This happens because, as students of the University, we are human resources of the institution, and therefore, all the research developed by us also belongs to them - and we are considered inventors, not patent direct holders. Another aspect that confirms their ownership on the patents is that we developed all the project in USP laboratories. With that in mind, our startup will license this patent and hopefully develop new technologies in the future as a partner of USP. All the details of how we decided the patent is in this link.
As stated before, our technology is innovative and fully-patentable. In order to understand the importance of our project we searched for similar patents along with Braskem. Table 2 shows the patents deposited all around the world related to our project, and here we state the differences between their idea and ours. Using the keywords Rubber Oxigenase and triisoprene no results were obtained. For polyisoprene degradation and rubber degradation we have got the following results.
References
1. http://www.inpi.gov.br/; Acessed on 09/12/2015.USP Innovation Agency
Lawyer and Accountant
BusinessModel
The current “linear” approach to satisfying customers demand has been working for the last 250 years, when the resources are abundant and inexpensive. Companies hold high technologies to extract raw materials, manufacture, sell and ship, lying on the principles of “take, make, waste”. Although it has been very lucrative, it is no longer viable. According to US National Climate Assessment the projection for current growth model in the next two decades is a trillion-dollar loss for companies dependent on virgin non-renewable natural resources due volatility and increasing prices. There are a plenty of studies highlighting the increasing resource scarcity and mounting waste (the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Resource Panel (http://www.unep.org/resourcepanel/), it is expected the total demand for limited resources to reach 400 percent overuse of Earth’s total capacity by 2050 (http://www.footprintnetwork.org/images/uploads/Ecological_Footprint_Atlas_2010.pdf). Some recent initiatives were covered in the media this year, such as the international group of the seven major advanced economies in the World (G7) agreement to cut greenhouse gases by phasing out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/g7-leaders-agree-phase-out-fossil-fuel-use-end-of-century). The unsustainable scenario is very clear, the economic development and scarcity scenario are on a collision course. If nothing changes to address the situation, the economic and environmental impact will be devastating.
A business model must be implemented to drive future growth by radical improvement of resources use and productivity. The model is called circular economy and it has been being exploited by few visionary companies for decades. Its core is to create new value chains to decouple growth from the use of scarce and linear resource. It can be accomplished by extending product’s life, providing renewable energy, using recyclable inputs, recovering useful resources/energy out of disposed products, offering the product as a service and creating sharing platforms for possible product shared access or use.
A good example of circular economy on tire industry is Michelin, one of the world’s leading tire manufacturers, created a tire as a service platform in which customers can rent instead of buying tires. They pay per miles driven and do not have to worry about maintenance, which is performed by Michelin. By adopting this model, tire lifetime is increased and company gets motivated to keep giving a proper destination for the product.
Rubber Biotechnologies also adopted the circular economy as its business model. By recovering useful resources and energy out from tire waste, providing renewable energy from natural latex and extending tire life with a devulcanized product, the startup prioritizes long-term sustainability. In the following scheme it is shown how the developed technology has the potential to improve the tire cycle.
REFERENCIAS ARRUMAR
Target Market
Customer Discovery
Evaluation
As a market projection it was built an illustrative representation of the value generated by the sell of our products in a projection of two, four and six years with a 200 000 liters bioreactors. In the two first years the only product generated will be the devulcanized rubber and the other technologies will be under development in a pilot scale. We expect degradation and hydrogenation processes to be developed to large scale in 4 and six years, respectively. The annually amount of tire collected by ANIP is 460 000 tons/year. Considering that in our first two years they will address 1% to us, which is 4 600 tons/year we performed the following forecasts.
Assuming that the devulcanization process will take one week to yield 15%, 690 tons/year of devulcanized rubber will be produced. In a price of $0,50/kg, the profit will be $345 000 per year in the first two years.
In the degradation process, RoxA has an enzymatic activity of 61,36 µg ODTD per mg of RoxA, and proposing a bioreactor of 240 000 L, we will produce 288 tons of ODTD per year. Additionally, knowing that the quantity of polyisoprene in tires is 50%, and remembering our previous calculation of devulcanized rubber, we will need 234 tons of tires. Our yield comparing with the devulcanized substract will be around 45%. In this process, our estimated incoming capital is $ 576 000. Finally, having this amount of ODTD and projecting a yield of 80%, we hope to produce 230,4 tons of jet fuel. Selling for $4,00 per kilogram, the profit will be $ 921 600.