Biodegradable & compostable materials including bioplastics and natural polymers
Highlights:
- Overall filings in biodegradable and compostable materials are high, but in the packaging sector filings have dropped in 2022 and 2023 compared to 2021.
- Korea leads in terms of patent filing numbers across biodegradable and compostable materials, likely due to government policy around plastic waste.
- There has been a surge in filings in India since 2021, possibly due to stricter regulations in India around single-use plastics.
- Filings relating to packaging materials containing PLA and butylene-based bioplastics have rebounded in 2023, but continued to fall for PHAs and wood- or paper-derived packaging materials.
- Seaweed is attracting more attention as a source of materials for biodegradable (and even edible) packaging.
Since 2017, filings have increased sharply, reaching historic highs in 2023.
Plastic pollution: the challenge
Conventional plastics, derived from fossil fuels, are very slow to break down and may persist in the environment for decades. Yet they are indispensable to modern life, especially for packaging food and drink due to their strength, lightness, and low cost.
One approach to reducing plastic pollution is to replace conventional plastics, where possible, with biodegradable or compostable materials. Biodegradable materials break down in the natural environment much faster than conventional plastics, while compostable materials degrade under specific home or industrial composting conditions. Even where they are not fully biodegradable, compostable materials can offer a useful alternative to landfill or incineration, particularly where recycling is not commercially viable.
Global patent activity in biodegradable and compostable materials
Patent filing numbers in this sector first took off in the 1990s, peaking from 2001 to 2003 before declining slightly (Figure 1). Since 2017, filings have increased sharply, reaching historic highs in 2023, although growth slowed slightly between 2022 and 2023.
Figure 1: sixty-year trend (1964-2023) – global priority (patent) filings – biodegradable and compostable materials
This renewed surge aligns with the post-Paris Agreement wave of climate policies, and with increasing corporate sustainability targets. Many major consumer brands have pledged to shift to recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025, creating a commercial pull for innovation. Investor and consumer pressure around ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria has further increased the attractiveness of this space.
Today, overall filings are higher but spread more widely across countries, indicating a broad global push.
Top filing territories
Breaking down the filing numbers from Figure 1 by territory reveals how the landscape has shifted (Figure 2). The 2001 to 2003 peak was mostly driven by Japanese filings. Today, overall filings are higher but spread more widely across countries, indicating a broad global push.
Figure 2: thirty year trend (1994-2023) – global priority (patent) filings by territory – biodegradable and compostable materials
South Korea has overtaken Europe since 2021, likely driven by government commitments to cut plastic waste by 20% by 2025 and replace fossil plastics with bioplastics by 2050. These ambitious targets have created regulatory certainty and commercial incentive, spurring innovation.
India has also surged since 2022, overtaking Japan and the US to become the third biggest source of filings. This appears to be a regulatory shock effect: India’s 2022 ban on certain single-use plastics triggered a scramble to develop alternatives. India’s rapidly expanding consumer market also offers large potential rewards for sustainable packaging solutions.
Japan, by contrast, saw high activity in the early 2000s, likely tied to early PLA and starch-based plastics development, but has since dropped significantly and plateaued – following a common trend for Japanese patent filing activity during that period across a number of technologies.
These examples highlight how regulatory certainty and supportive policy can catalyse patent activity.
Global patent activity in biodegradable and compostable packaging
Patent filing trends for packaging (Figure 3) broadly follow the overall pattern, but show a notable drop in 2022 and 2023. Although activity remains higher than pre-2020 levels, this dip may reflect the global economic downturn reducing appetite for riskier, still-emerging technologies. Companies may also have paused to address commercialisation bottlenecks, such as costs, scale-up challenges, and uncertainty around consumer uptake.
Figure 3: fifty-year trend (1974-2023) – global priority (patent) filings – biodegradable and compostable packaging
Another factor could be that some firms shifted focus to recyclability and reuse models, which are more mature and infrastructure-compatible, temporarily diverting resources from compostables.
Territory-level data (Figure 4) shows similar drops in South Korea, Europe and Japan, while India stands out for its sharp rise, reinforcing the role of policy-driven innovation.
Figure 4: Thirty year trend (1994-2023) – global priority (patent) filings by territory – biodegradable and compostable packaging
Top filers in India - biodegradable and compostable packaging
Who is behind the recent upsurge in filings originating in India? The answer, it seems, is predominantly academia. Over the past five years, nine of the ten top filing entities in India have been educational or research establishments such as universities (Figure 5). It is unclear whether the patent filings originating from academic and research institutes are truly intended for commercialisation or whether other factors are at play, such as the prestige of having a patent in a researcher’s name. However, if patent applications where being filed solely for academic recognition, this would not explain why the filing numbers in India have surged only recently. This activity correlates with the timing of the tighter restrictions on single use plastics and may represent an innovation response to this stimulus. It remains to be seen how this translates into commercial applications in the coming years.
The patent applications originating from the top filers in India cover a variety of inventions. In 2023, some of the technologies covered include plastic films derived from waste materials such as rice husks, biodegradable food packaging, edible coatings or films for food, biodegradable tableware, biodegradable planting pots or seedling bags, and biodegradable materials for the treatment of waste water or the containment of contaminated waste. The number one filer over the past five years is UPL Ltd – an Indian multinational which has been filing applications relating to agrochemical compositions. Notably, it is the only of the top ten Indian filers that is not an academic institute.
Figure 5: five year overview (2019-2023) – top filers in India – biodegradable and compostable packaging
Trends in different packaging materials
Two main types of biodegradable and compostable packaging materials are those derived from wood – like card and paper, and those derived from biodegradable/compostable plastics - bioplastics. Paper and card have a long history of being used as packaging material. Meanwhile, bioplastics (of the biodegradable and compostable kind) are a more recent development designed to mimic the properties of conventional, petrochemical-derived plastics while addressing their lack of degradability.
Packaging filings for both of these materials rose strongly from 2017 to 2021, dropped in 2022, and then diverged: wood-derived filings continued falling in 2023 while bioplastics rebounded slightly (Figure 6).
Figure 6: thirty year trend (1994-2023) – global priority (patent) filings by material – wood-derived and bioplastic
Top filers in paper or wood-derived packaging materials
Half of the top ten filers in the wood-derived packaging space over the five most recent years are Japanese companies, including the top filer OJI Holdings Corp., while the remaining filing entities each originate from a different territory, and include the consumer goods companies Nestlé and Procter and Gamble (Figure 7). None of the top ten filers have been immune from the downturn in general filing numbers (see above) for this technology, with only four among them filing patent applications in 2023. These recent patent applications mostly relate to multilayer biodegradable packaging (in particular for food and beverages) wherein one of the layers is paper and other layers provide barrier properties like water resistance.
Figure 7: five year overview (2019-2023) – top filers in wood-derived packaging
Top filers in bioplastic packaging materials
The top ten filers in the bioplastic packaging space in the five years to 2023 have a few similarities to those for wood-derived packaging. The top two filers in bioplastic packaging are Japanese companies (in this case Mitsubishi Chem Corp and Kuraray Co. Ltd.), and Nestlé and Procter and Gamble again feature amongst the top filers (Figure 8). However, there are also some differences. Four of the top ten (albeit none of the top five) are Korean companies, correlating with South Korea’s large filing numbers relating to biodegradable materials more generally (see Figure 2 above). Furthermore, filing activity from the top filers has been robust in 2023, in keeping with the rebound seen in general filing numbers (see Figure 6 above). Recent patent applications filed by the top filers relate to a variety of inventions, such as bioplastic films that are water soluble or that have gas barrier properties.
Figure 8: five year overview (2019-2023) – top filers in bioplastic packaging
Trends in different types of bioplastic packaging materials
Four main types of bioplastic materials are widely used:
- Starch blends – cheap, readily available, good biodegradability but lower water resistance and strength
- Polylactic acid (PLA) – from crop sugars, relatively inexpensive, good mechanical properties, but requires industrial composting
- Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) – from algae sugars, biodegradable but expensive to produce
- Butylene-based polymers – petrochemical-derived but biodegradable (e.g. PBS, PBAT)
PLA has attracted the most filings, possibly due to its similarity to conventional plastics. PLA, PHAs and butylene-based polymers peaked in 2021 then fell in 2022. In 2023, PLA and butylene-based filings rebounded slightly while PHAs continued to decline. Starch-based packaging filings have risen steadily throughout, without the volatility seen in other materials. This may reflect their low cost, wide availability and incremental patenting opportunities.
Figure 9: bioplastic packaging materials - global priority filings by material (25-year trend)
Seaweed-based materials
Seaweed-based packaging is an emerging area showing marked growth since 2017 (Figure 10). Seaweed’s appeal lies in its sustainability profile (no land or freshwater use) and rapid growth rate. The field also received a visibility boost when a seaweed-based packaging start-up won the 2022 Earthshot Prize.
Early activity may represent a “land grab” of broad patent claims before the field matures commercially, which is common at the innovation frontier.
Figure 10: forty year trend – global priority (patent) filings – seaweed-based materials
Implications for innovation and future filings
The trends across these material types and territories demonstrate how innovation responds to a balance of three forces: commercial opportunity, regulatory certainty, and technical feasibility.
Policy-driven pushes in countries like South Korea and India suggest that clear regulation is one of the strongest levers to accelerate development, with the implementation of such policies often establishing a large part of the commercial opportunity.
As regulatory and policy conditions continue to evolve, we can expect future patent activity to track closely with where higher levels of regulatory certainty can be found.
David Jasiewicz Associate
Chris Mason Partner and Patent Attorney