Abstract
Sea Lice has the greatest economic impact of any parasite in salmonid fish farming and the cost of control may become limiting factor on farm productivity as well as profitability. So, it is very necessary to foster innovation in sea lice control or treatment. This study deals with exploring the current situation/prior art on patents, its stakeholders and firm level analysis with number of patents filed. A patent landscape analysis was made for sea lice treatment to provide overview of global patent activity from histological, organizational, geographical and technological point of view. From the analysis results, it was found that Norway has highest number of patent families (52) and followed by the USA. Highest numbers of patent publications were issued in US (364) followed by Norway (314). The patents originated in Norway are the one extended to most other countries, while patents from US, Japan and United Kingdom are also applied in many countries. In particular, 3M Innovative Properties from USA contains the highest number of network and has the highest number of patent publications filed with different inventors. Among those inventors, Merrill Bryon Anderson has the highest contribution with total of 187 filed patents followed by Heppner Phillip Dal, 155 and Merrill Bryon Anderson with 87 different patent applications filed as inventor and principal applicant. The total numbers of firms working with sea lice treatment in Norway covered in this research is 73. 3M Innovative Properties, Boehringer Ingelhem Int, Norsk Hydro Aqua, and Corixa Corp have filed the highest number patent applications in sea lice control. Most of the patent families (56) are registered under class A01K61, which deals with the cultivation of sea creatures like mussels, fishes, sponges, crayfish, lobsters, pearls etc. For the Norwegian firms working with sea lice treatment, there was correlation between the total number of patents filed in the last five years with firm size, revenues and profits in the years 2012 and 2013. For the year 2014, only revenue was positively correlated, but not the profit. Age of the firm was not correlated with number of patents filed. In overall, larger sea lice control firms are more innovative than smaller firms, and more profitable firms have filed more patents than less profitable firms.