Salmon 'ark' takes step closer to becoming a reality
The team behind plans for a self-propelled fish farm that can operate in the open sea have obtained a patent from the National Institute of Intellectual Property of Chile (Inapi), taking the concept closer to being realised.
The Ocean Arks Tech (Oatech) or Arca de Cultivo is designed for operations on the coast, in the Exclusive Economic Zone and on the high seas, where it can find the best water conditions for the fish.
The vessel - designed for the cultivation of salmon, trout, tuna, seriola or cobia - has an approximate capacity of 3,900 tonnes of production.
For the Oatech promoters, the process involved arduous design work to ensure their vessel fulfilled the requirements of invention patents. The project had to have inventive capacity, be novel and fulfil the technical requirements necessary to be a patent for invention.
“This is a long process that took more than two years, where the whole team was involved so that this effort materialised not only in a beautiful design but a patent of invention, which leaves us on the map of the development of solutions for global aquaculture (Patent 201601709),” said the Oatech team.
International patents
Having first secured a patent at home, the Chilean inventors are now in the international patenting phase, which is already quite advanced and leaves them with “a great advantage because those who come after us with similar developments, their innovations will run into our patent”.
The team are confident of winning backing for their invention.
“Every day, public opinion and buyers of seafood are more clear that the future of aquaculture will be off-shore, in the seas where this activity does not interfere with other coastal activities and where the places for the culture of fish are really sustainable, not because it indicates a seal of quality but because it is in the immensity of the ocean where the concentration of fish or school is a natural state of fish; for this reason it is a matter of time for them to see the first Arca de Cultivo at sea,” they told Fish Farming Expert’s Chilean sister site, Salmonexpert.cl.
“The big investors are beginning to see that aquaculture is not a business that is based in some privileged coastal areas, but it is a global business that has to do with the growing demand of humanity.”
