신선 농산물의 수확 후 포장 및 저장 기술과 관련된 특허 동향 분석

Patents for postharvest technology of fresh fruits, vegetables and mushrooms fluctuated in their filing number until the 2000s, but then there has been a steady increase in the 2010s, indicating that the technology has high growth potential in the international agricultural market. Using 551 valid patents for fresh fruits and 337 for fresh vegetables of 5 countries, patent trend of postharvest technology was analyzed in this study with two categorized technologies as pack aging and storage. In Korea, patents from national research institutes such as the Korea Food Research Institute and Korea (Rural Development Administration) are dominated, and a number of patents for the postharvest storage of fresh veg etables by Mitsui Chemicals, a Japanese chemical company, have been registered. Agrofresh, a multinational company in the USA, holds a number of patents for postharvest storage of fresh fruit not only in its own country, but also in Japan and Europe. Postharvest technology of fresh fruits and vegetables was found to has a number of patents, mainly from national research institutes and multinational corporations, and this suggests that R&D and commercialization of the tech nologies are actively taking place.