Correlação entre patentes depositadas e publicações de artigos científicos sobre proteases vegetais aplicadas na fabricação de queijo e leite hipoalergênico

Abstract

The main advantage of using enzymes as biotechnological inputs is the possibility to make industrial processes in a moderate condition, mainly because enzymes are specific to their substrate. Proteases are enzymes widely used in food processing. Proteases are pivotal tools in the manufacture of cheese, as a coagulating agent, and in the production of hypoallergenic milk, as a hydrolization agent of proteins that may be responsible for the onset of allergies. This study aimed at making a correlation between the number of patents and published scientific papers related to plants or latex proteases used in the production of cheese and hypoallergenic milk worldwide since 1976. There is an increasing interest in new proteases suitable for milk processing even due the fall in the slaughter of calves, causing shortness of rennet and hence an increase in its cost. The searches for patents and scientific publications were conducted using the keywords “plant”, “latex”, “protease”, “peptidase”, “proteinase”, “milk”, “dairy”, “casein” and “cheese”, combined through the operators " AND" and " OR ". Patents were searched on the international databases USPTO (United States), Derwent Innovations Index (global) and SPACENET-Worldwide (European database with worldwide patents) and the INPI for national patents deposits. For the papers research on the subject it was used the Web of Science portal. As a result it was only found four patents, none of which referred to protease latex, however the number of published scientific articles on studies of plant proteases applied to the production of cheese and milk hydrolysates has been growing over the years, specially from the 1990s. There is a clear mismatch between the number of published scientific studies and the number of patents applied for this purpose. This shows that prospecting for biotechnological potential is intense. However there is no obvious investment/entrepreneurship to transform potential into commercial products and thus stimulate patent applications. One of the reasons for the few patent applications is that scientists need to publish articles in order to have a better recognition and, consequently, a higher rate of projects approval by funding agencies. Once the research results are public, it is no longer possible to patent it.