Thousands of patents have been filed for products derived from threatened wildlife such as bears, rhinos and pangolins, and commercial interest in these products appears to be growing.
The global trade in illegal wildlife products is the fourth biggest criminal activity in the world, in spite of international agreements restricting trade in endangered species.聽Rhinos, bears and pangolins are among the species most threatened by illegal trade, with rhino horn, bear bile and pangolin scales in high demand for use in traditional Chinese medicine.
To gain insight into how businesses may exploit wildlife in the future, at the University of Oxford and her colleagues investigated trends in wildlife-related patents. They focused on six threatened groups that are yet widely traded: bears, rhinoceros, caterpillar fungi, pangolins, horseshoe crabs and sturgeon.
Advertisement
Using machine learning, they analysed all patents filed globally between 1970 and 2020 and found that 27,308 patents involved the selected groups.
Medicines were one of the most common types of product across the groups, alongside food and drink, such as an alcoholic beverage made with sturgeon caviar. 鈥淲e also saw a patent for pangolin trousers 鈥� it was pretty wild,鈥� says team member at the University of Oxford.
In spite of trade bans, the number of patents involving most of the wildlife groups in the study has grown at a faster rate since 1988 than the number of patents involving other types of product. For example, 426 of the 526 patents for rhinoceros products in China were filed after the country鈥檚 domestic trade ban in 1993. This implies that companies may be hoping for a relaxation of these regulations and could be developing the products using illegally acquired material.
In contrast, the ban on international trade of all pangolin species in 2017 led to a drop in patenting rates.
鈥淲hilst not all patents gain commercial exploitation, it shows you the areas of interest where innovation is occurring, and it leads you to see potential trends that emerge,鈥� says Wright.
鈥淭his type of patent analysis could help to shape policy to be more effective and potentially more sustainable, reducing the opportunity for illegal trading to prosper,鈥� says at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.
鈥淭he findings remind us that wildlife trade, especially in developing nations, are large-scale business operations, with their own research and development, supply chains and serious, premeditated anticipation for, and response to, changing conservation policies,鈥� says at Harvard University.
Research Square
