Years of direct observation of currents in aquatic environments led to a fundamental question: in a nearly incompressible medium, the interaction between a device and a current is not limited to the local contact with the surface directly exposed to the flow. It also involves the transmission of pressure and momentum through the fluid.

From this perception emerged a distinctive approach to hydrokinetic energy conversion, considering the three-dimensional interaction between the device and the surrounding volume of water. This scientific vision guided the conception of the Current Energy Collection Unit, UCEC.

Developed by physicist and inventor Mauricio Otaviano de Queiroz, the UCEC gave rise to an international patent family protecting technical aspects of its architecture and operation.

In Brazil, the invention was examined by the Brazilian National Institute of Industrial Property, INPI, under its Green Patents Program. The Brazilian grant was subsequently followed by patent grants in the United States, Japan and Mexico, expanding the international protection of the invention.

The invention was the subject of international application PCT/BR2021/050111, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, under publication number WO2021/203183.

During the international procedure, the application underwent a patentability assessment and received a favorable written opinion, prior to entering the national phases and the European regional phase.

Granted Patents:
Brazil INPI,  BR 10 2020 007224-2 B1 Green Patents Program
United States  USPTO, US 12,168,969 B2
Japan JPO,  JP 7539484
México IMPI, Título de Patente nº 436479

Applications Under Examination:
In addition to the four patents already granted, corresponding applications from the same patent family remain under examination before the European Patent Office, EPO, and the China National Intellectual Property Administration, CNIPA.

International Technology Classification:

Documents within the UCEC patent family are classified primarily under subclass F03B of the International Patent Classification, IPC, which covers machines or engines for liquids.

Among the main classifications assigned to the patent family are F03B 13/26, relating to the use of tidal energy; F03B 13/12, relating to the use of wave or tidal energy; F03B 3/04, reaction-type hydraulic machines with substantially axial flow through the rotor; F03B 11/02, casings; F03B 3/12, blades and blade-carrying rotors; and F03B 17/06, machines using liquid flow.

The IPC and CPC classifications are systems used by intellectual property offices to organize and search technological documents. They do not, by themselves, define or limit the legal scope of the invention, which is established by the patent claims.