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When it comes to patents, Massachusetts is a big player

Local inventors place their bets on biodegradable plastic, high-performing golf balls, next-gen yoga mats, and more.

Shutterstock / globe staff photo illustration

IT WAS A PHONE CALL from a friend three years ago that put Keith Hearon on the path to inventing a new type of plastic from unusual materials. The friend worked for a fast food company and was bothered by the amount of polystyrene in its waste stream. “He asked if I could come up with a way to recycle styrofoam,” says Hearon, now a postdoctoral fellow at MIT’s Langer Lab, which specializes in biotechnology and materials science.

Could MIT postdoc Keith Hearon have invented a practical use for all that styrofoam?Pat Greenhouse/Globe staff/Globe Staff

Hearon, who was then a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering at Texas A&M, got intrigued. A Japanese study he found pointed to a possible solution in another item in the food waste stream: lemon peels. Conducted by the Sony Corp. in the late 1990s, the study showed a citrus-rind extract called D-limonene could dissolve styrofoam.

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Hearon figured out that by combining D-limonene with a second chemical, he could create a new form of potentially biodegradable “citrus plastic.” What’s more, he theorized that adding styrofoam to the mix would dissolve the styrofoam and result in a new plastic that while not biodegradable could be many times stronger. Before he even began to experiment, he quickly filed a patent (pending today) to protect the technology.

Now in the development phase, Hearon believes the citrus plastic with styrofoam has vast potential for larger-scale applications, thanks to its strength. His work earned him a finalist spot on the 2014 Collegiate Inventors Competition, sponsored by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Through his new company, Poly6 Technologies, Hearon hopes to commercialize both the biodegradable plastic he calls Citrene and the stronger citrus plastic with styrofoam as alternatives to less environmentally conscious materials. His vision for their uses stretches far and wide, from “biomedical applications [to] green, solvent-free coatings. Some compositions make it really strong, so it could be used for engineering plastics,” he says.

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Hearon’s technology, patent pending, combines the material with a citrus peel extract (he now uses oranges as well as lemons) to create a strong plastic.Pat Greenhouse/Globe staff

PATENTING ACTIVITY PLAYS A BIG ROLE in the state’s reputation for innovation. In 2014, the Milken Institute ranked Massachusetts number one on its State Technology and Science Index. States rise to the top of the index for having a larger number of high-quality research facilities, churning out lots of science, technology, and engineering degrees, and supporting a sizable tech workforce. A state’s success in transforming high-tech assets into revenue and in prospering from entrepreneurship and venture capital are also factors the institute considers.

A lengthy, expensive process that offers no guaranteed profit, patenting is, of course, a risky venture. In 2014, 7,079 patents were issued statewide, or 4.5 percent of the national patent volume. According to a 2014 report from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, among all states, Massachusetts has the highest patent volume per capita and, at 70.8 percent, the highest five-year growth rate in patent output. The report also states that computer, communications, drug, and medical patents make up 76.6 percent of the Massachusetts filings, and for the fifth year in a row, the state led the country in analytical instrument and research method patents, producing 95 patents per million residents. That’s roughly 48 percent more output than runner-up California.

Recent patents granted in the Bay State protect all kinds of intellectual property. In September, a Chestnut Hill company developed a new yoga mat with a compressible first layer that fosters an “active grip” around hands and feet. That grip, the patent holders say, allows for more grounded poses and prevents slipping even when the yogi using the mat is sweaty.

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Meanwhile in Fairhaven this spring, the Acushnet Co., with hundreds of golf-related patents to its name, was granted yet another for a new golf ball design with rubber-core technology that promises a longer flight distance. Also this spring, the Patent and Trademark Office bestowed its 2015 Patents for Humanity award on a team of Massachusetts mechanical engineers for the Leveraged Freedom Chair, a wheelchair equipped with bicycle tires and push levers to negotiate rugged terrain in developing countries, where paved roads and sidewalks may be scarce or nonexistent.

Dr. Harald Ott, a thoracic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, got a patent in April for a bioartificial lung, the latest application of an organ regeneration technology he pioneered nearly a decade ago. “In 2006, I filed a patent on perfusion decellularization of organs and tissues,” Ott explains, a process that involves stripping down a donor organ deemed ineligible for transplant to its bare scaffolding. Once the organ is stripped, it gets repopulated with the recipient patient’s cells, a process that greatly reduces the risk of organ rejection.

The general concept isn’t new; it’s essentially a graft, as for skin or bone, using live tissue to grow new tissue. Organ decellularization has been patented several times over by different inventors since the early 2000s. What differentiates Ott’s technique is that he uses an organ’s own vascular system for the decellularization and cell repopulation processes. Suddenly, it’s patentable.

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With legal protection, Ott’s research has blossomed. “So far, we’ve done hearts, lungs, kidneys, and the pancreas,” he says. Research is underway to see if the same process can regenerate muscle and bowel tissue. If it can, perhaps he’ll file another patent. Until then, it’s anyone’s game.

LAND OF INVENTION

2,021 — Number of patent attorneys and agents in Massachusetts

7,079 — Number of patents issued to inventors in Massachusetts in 2014:

> 6,725 utility patents

> 337 design patents

> 15 reissued patents

> 2 plant patents

5th — Massachusetts’s ranking in most patents issued in 2014 – Bay State inventors accounted for 4.5% of patents issued to US residents in 2014

4.6% — Increase in patents issued to Massachusetts inventors from 2013 to 2014 (and an 81.3% increase from 2004 to 2014)

Land of Invention Sources: Us Patent and Trademark Office; Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative

BRIGHT IDEAS

Massachusetts inventors don’t take the summer off — these patents are just a sample of those issued this June or July to people, companies, and institutions in the Bay State.

1. A flexible tracker sewn into your T-shirt monitors athletic performance.

2. A new plant strain withstands extremely low temperatures.

3. A bicycle-powered treatment system cheaply produces clean water.

4. A portable new system provides convenient kidney dialysis.

5. An autonomous lawn mower has a detector that locates uncut grass and steers clear of non-grass items.

6. White-noise speakers quietly drown out open-plan office chatter.

7. A robotic arm and brush clear hard-to-reach snow from flat-roofed vehicles.

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8. A radiation-shielding cockpit protects X-ray technicians.

9. More efficient 3-D X-rays enhance mammogram technology.

10. A recognition system enables computers to re-create hand-drawn diagrams.


Freelance writer Emeralde Jensen-Roberts is a student at Emerson College. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.