Preface

With regard to depleted oil and gas resources, increasing world energy demand and volatile economic and political world scenarios, oil and gas industry players are working very hard to find ways to cut exploration and production costs to sustain and progress the industry to provide the world with cheap energy without harming the environment. Therefore, this vol‐ ume, which contains eight chapters, intends to provide readers with a comprehensive over‐ view of the current state of the art in drilling, such as advanced drilling operations and techniques used by the industry, particularly in floating, underbalanced drilling, smart drill‐ ing fluid, intelligent drilling, drilling optimization, and future drilling technology and devel‐ opment. These eight chapters have been selected because they represent areas of drilling technology for which sufficient technical progress has been achieved with a view to techno‐ logical advancement.

I have enjoyed working with the authors of this volume, who have been most diligent in preparing their chapters. Thanks for their contributions, patience, and commitment to the process. Each chapter is designed to help the reader gain an insight into the most important aspects of each topic.

On behalf of the authors, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to IntechOpen and Mr. Markus Mattila, Author Service Manager, for their support, and to all the staff who have provided input, drafting, revisions, and production for this book.

It is my hope that this edition will be used as a source of knowledge and technology, and be used by all concerned for the betterment of humankind.

> **Prof. Dr. Ariffin Samsuri** Petroleum Engineering Department Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia

**Chapter 1**

**Provisional chapter**

**Proposing a Patent Information Approach for**

**Proposing a Patent Information Approach for** 

**Upstream Oil and Gas Industry**

**Upstream Oil and Gas Industry**

Gabriel Cavalheiro, Mariana Brandao and

Gabriel Cavalheiro, Mariana Brandao and

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.75377

Saulo Rocha

Saulo Rocha

**Abstract**

formations.

**1. Introduction**

technology trend

industrial, commercial, and domestic scale [2].

**Identifying Technological Trends in the Brazilian**

**Identifying Technological Trends in the Brazilian** 

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.75377

In recent years, Brazil has emerged as a leading offshore producer with extensive proven reserves yet to be explored. As a matter of fact, the discovery of huge oil deposits in the pre-salt layer of the country's Southeastern coast is motivating oil and gas exploration in great depths in Brazil, thereby also generating increasing demand for drilling capabilities. This study addresses the technological implications of this discovery by examining patent information. Here, we provide empirical evidence indicating an increased interest for patenting technologies designed to enhance not only ultra-deep drilling capabilities and build and maintain oil wells, but also technologies to increase oil production from

**Keywords:** patent information, patent analytics, oil and gas, technology, drilling,

Despite the strong increase in the use of renewable fuels and the substantial reduction in oil prices in recent years, crude oil is still considered an extremely important commodity [1, 2]. On the one hand, oil comprises the largest share in the world energy mix for several decades [3]. On the other hand, our society is heavily dependent on a well-established and complex infrastructure for exploitation and the use of oil to fulfill energy needs in

> © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

#### **Proposing a Patent Information Approach for Identifying Technological Trends in the Brazilian Upstream Oil and Gas Industry Proposing a Patent Information Approach for Identifying Technological Trends in the Brazilian Upstream Oil and Gas Industry**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.75377

Gabriel Cavalheiro, Mariana Brandao and Saulo Rocha Gabriel Cavalheiro, Mariana Brandao and Saulo Rocha

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.75377

#### **Abstract**

In recent years, Brazil has emerged as a leading offshore producer with extensive proven reserves yet to be explored. As a matter of fact, the discovery of huge oil deposits in the pre-salt layer of the country's Southeastern coast is motivating oil and gas exploration in great depths in Brazil, thereby also generating increasing demand for drilling capabilities. This study addresses the technological implications of this discovery by examining patent information. Here, we provide empirical evidence indicating an increased interest for patenting technologies designed to enhance not only ultra-deep drilling capabilities and build and maintain oil wells, but also technologies to increase oil production from formations.

**Keywords:** patent information, patent analytics, oil and gas, technology, drilling, technology trend

#### **1. Introduction**

Despite the strong increase in the use of renewable fuels and the substantial reduction in oil prices in recent years, crude oil is still considered an extremely important commodity [1, 2]. On the one hand, oil comprises the largest share in the world energy mix for several decades [3]. On the other hand, our society is heavily dependent on a well-established and complex infrastructure for exploitation and the use of oil to fulfill energy needs in industrial, commercial, and domestic scale [2].

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

As consequence of the central role played by oil in our society, which was consolidated primarily from the second half of the twentieth century onward, the need to identify new reserves of this non-renewable fuel in order to ensure a reliable supply of this resource became a critical necessity worldwide [4]. As such, the combination of an increasing demand for oil and the growing technical challenges associated with the remaining oil reserves found in remote locations has motivated robust technological investments by oil firms that are constantly investing huge sums to find and exploit new reserves [5].

and costs of a new technology, as well as the reaction of users to it [12]. As such, the logic behind the patent system assumes that firms invest in risky R&D activities in order to generate innovative technologies or products. As a consequence of the huge investments associated with the development of new technologies or products, it is certainly fair to assume that this investment should somehow be protected [13–15]. In this way, patents can be perceived as legal instruments providing exclusive rights to enable innovative firms to prosper in a challenging, risky, and dynamic business environment [10, 16]. Hence, these firms are able to protect their investment in new technologies by filing a patent in a Patent Office [17–19].

Proposing a Patent Information Approach for Identifying Technological Trends in the Brazilian…

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.75377

3

Fundamentally, a patent can be regarded as packaged knowledge that delimits and draws boundaries around a set of technical characteristics [20, 21] and concedes an effective instrument to prevent imitation by competitors [22]. Additionally, the value of a patent is dependent upon a number of factors such as the potential for licensing to other businesses, the quality of the patent [23], the importance of the market covered by the patent [15, 24], and the effectiveness and stringency of patent enforcement [25]. Moreover, as stated by Davies [26], technologies are subject to a life cycle that suggests a decreasing rate of innovation and

As a direct consequence of the growing number of protected technologies, various authors stress that the patent system is characterized by an increasing level of complexity [23, 27, 28]. Accordingly, it is common to have single products, like smartphones and tablets, incorporating hundreds or even thousands of patents, thereby creating legal disputes involving a large set of patents, rather than just one. Hence, the costs involved in negotiating and licensing the

The international patent system gained significant importance toward the end of last century. Due to many significant technological developments associated with the Second World War, a plurality of innovative technologies was developed in fields such as computer science, materials, telecommunications, biotechnology, and nuclear energy [30]. As stated by Galini [29], the large-scale adoption of these technologies has transformed society into a knowledge-based society that generates an increasing amount of inventions needing to be protected against unauthorized copy. Moreover, given the fact that innovative firms are becoming increasingly dependent on their patent portfolios to remain competitive, patent information has become

Alongside with the rapid growth of available patent data, modern information technologies have revolutionized patent information practice in terms of both speed of access and information comprehensiveness, thereby motivating the development of sophisticated patent analysis tools. As stated by Abbas et al. [31], currently, there are several IT-based patent analytic tools capable of performing tasks such as strategic technology planning, detecting patent infringement, determining patent quality, and identifying technological hotspots. Additionally, Ernst [20] pointed out that patent information can also be used for competition monitoring, R&D portfolio management, and identification of potential sources of technological knowledge. In order to analyze patent data from dynamic, heterogeneous, and scattered information sources, researchers in this realm count with increasingly sophisticated solutions, such as patent landscape, text mining, and digital mind mapping tools to address large data volumes [32, 33].

economic value as technologies gradually become obsolete.

relevant patents is continuously increasing [29].

an evolving and important research area.

In recent years, Brazil has emerged as a relevant offshore oil producer with extensive proven reserves yet to be explored [6]. More specifically, in 2007, the Brazilian Federal Government announced the discovery of a huge oil and natural field in the pre-salt layer of the country's Southeastern coast. This discovery was accomplished by Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) and was considered to be one of the world's largest in recent years [7]. However, despite the evident economic benefits associated with this huge oil discovery, substantial resources will need to be put in place to address the operational challenges coming from the ultra-deep water environment of the largest subsea project in the world [8].

Given the promising prospects generated by the pre-salt discovery, firms operating in the oil and gas industry rapidly perceived that the operational characteristics of the pre-salt reserve would generate a huge demand for technology-intensive services and equipment. As such, as pointed out by Cavalheiro et al. [9], there was a boom in patent filings in Brazil in response to the market opportunities for new upstream technologies to enable the development of the pre-salt fields. Increasingly, market opportunities associated with technologies determine the propensity of firms to file patent applications [10]. However, despite the awareness of the increased interest of firms in protecting innovative upstream oil and gas technologies in Brazil, extant literature remains silent on the most critical technical areas protected by firms.

Consequently, this study provides a contribution for understanding the most critical technological areas associated with the pre-salt exploitation by examining patterns of patent filings in Brazil regarding upstream oil and gas technologies. As such, this paper is aimed at improving understanding of the specific technological trends regarding the exploitation of the pre-salt reserves.

This paper is structured as follows Section 2 provides a literature review on patent information and examines the context of the oil and gas industry in Brazil. Then, Section 3 describes our research method. Section 4 examines the patterns of patent applications in Brazil concerning upstream oil and gas technologies. Finally, in Section 5, our conclusions are put forward.
