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The Heavy Oil Intellectual Property Advisory Service (HOIPaS℠) is the heavy oil brokerage service of Ecotert Technologies. Through this service, Ecotert provides boutique advisory service on intellectual property (notably patents and trade secrets) pertaining to heavy oil and bitumen (HO-B) technologies. Ecotert's expertise is a niche with emphasis on a range of heavy oil and bitumen (HO-B) technologies covering subsurface, surface, production chemistry, flow assurance, interfacial properties, software and environmental impact mitigation solutions. These patents and trade secrets are relevant to heavy oil and bitumen evaluation, recovery, production, transportation and processing. They are also of applications in other industries, including: utilities, manufacturing, chemical, pharmaceutical, aerospace, automotive, agricultural and construction industries.

HO-B intellectual property (IP) assets are becoming strategic asset classes that need to be: (1) effectively and rigorously monetized; (2) used for strategic negotiations in bid rounds' contracts and in acquisitions and divestitures; (3) included on balance sheets as goodwill assets[a, b & c] to better gauge companies' overall enterprise values; and (4) used for securing loans or funds[d]. Ecotert's mission is to help seek, protect and actively managed such IPs for the maximum benefits of IP owners through their monetization or their use as negotiable instruments or defense mechanisms; or a combination of all of these.


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(a) Advising clients on HO-B patents (utility and design) and trade secrets portfolios.
(b) Technical support for the development and management of HO-B intellectual property.
(c) Identification, protection and management of HO-B intellectual property assets by:

1. Conducting literature and IP reviews for prior arts and non-obviousness.
2. Preparing invention disclosures, patent applications and non-disclosure documents.
3. Tracking and documenting new inventions.
4. Consolidating technical information from various internal and external sources.
5. Identifying relevant technical issues and consolidating information for review and analysis.
6. Providing assistance in the analysis of patents and presenting of results.
7. Pursuing non-disclosure and/or confidentiality agreements with/for external parties.
8. Packaging of IP assets into negotiable instruments for bid rounds's contracts.
9. Helping to identify valuable IP assets and packaging into licensing deals.
10. Negotiating licenses for IP on behalf of clients.
11. Setting-up auction bids for prime HO-B intellectual property.
12. Valuation of IP assets (market, cost and income approaches)[b, e, f, g, h & i].
13. Calculating of damages (values) for alleged infringements.
14. Assessing IP quality.
15. Helping to navigate “Industry Standards” pitfalls.
16. Jurisdictions assessments for “Patent Box” tax competitiveness.


(a) Corporations/companies.
(b) R&D centers and institutes.
(c) Patent attorneys and agents.
(d) Patent law firms.
(e) Venture capital firms.
(f) Private equity firms.
(g) Government establishments and regulatory agencies.

To engage or use HOIPaS℠, contact Ecotert at: [email protected] for quotes and further details.



(a) Steward, T.A (1999). Intellectual capital: The new wealth of organization. Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. First Currency Paperback Edition: January 1999.
(b) Poltorak, A.I. and Lerner, P.J. (2002). Essentials of intellectual property. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, New York.
(c) Daves et al. (2004). Corporate valuation: A guide for managers and investors. South-Western Cengage Learning.
(d) Hochberg et al. (2015). Intangible but bankable. Science. 12 Jun 2015. Vol. 348, Issue 6240, pg.1202.
(e) Führer et al. (2013). Final report from the expert group on intellectual property valuation. Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. European Commission, Brussels, Belgium. November 29, 2013.
(f) Smith, G.V. and Russell L. P. (2004). Valuation of intellectual property and intangible assets, 2004 Cumulative Supplement. Intellectual Property Series. John Wiley & Sons. 3rd Edition.
(g) Finnerty, J.D. (2015). Project financing: Asset-based financial engineering. Wiley Finance. John Wiley & Sons. 3rd Edition.
(h) Johnson, S. (2015). Guide to intellectual property: What it is, how to protect it, how to exploit it. The Economist.
(i) Haskel, J. and Westlake, S. (2018). Capitalism without Capital: The rise of the intangible economy. Princeton University Press.


(A) In Situ Recovery, Processing and Activation of HO-B
(1) Butler, R.M. (1997). GravDrain’s Blackbook: Thermal recovery of oil and bitumen. Third printing by GravDrain Inc., Calgary, Alberta, Canada. October 2000.
(2) Almao, P.P. (2012). In situ upgrading of bitumen and heavy oils via nanocatalysis. Can. J. Chem. Eng. Vol. 90, pgs. 320-329.
(3) Desouky et al. (2013). Catalytic aquathermolysis of Egyptian heavy crude oil. International Journal of Chemical, Molecular, Nuclear, Materials and Metallurgical Engineering. Vol. 7, No. 8, pgs. 638-643.
(4) Cantat et al. (2013). Foam: Structure and dynamics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom.
(5) Shokrlu, Y.H. and Babadagli, T. (2013). In-situ upgrading of heavy oil/bitumen during steam injection by use of metal nanoparticles: A study on in-situ catalysis and catalyst trans. SPEERE. 16(3), pgs. 333-344.
(6) Hashemi et al. (2014). Nanoparticle technology for heavy oil in-situ upgrading and recovery enhancement: Opportunities and challenges. Applied Energy. Vol. 133, Issue C, pgs. 374-387.
(7) Shokrlu, Y.H. and Babadagli, T. (2014). Kinetics of the in-situ upgrading of heavy oil by nickel nanoparticle catalysts and its effect on cyclic-steam-stimulation recovery factor. SPEERE. 17(3), pgs. 355-364.
(8) Muraza, O. and Galadima, A. (2014). Aquathermolysis of heavy oil: A review and perspective on catalyst development. Fuel. Vol. 157, pgs. 219–231.
(9) Montoya et al. (2016). Kinetics and mechanisms of the catalytic thermal cracking of asphaltenes adsorbed on supported nanoparticles. Pet. Sci. Vol. 13, pgs. 561–571.
(10) Nassar et al. (2016). Nanotechnology for enhancing in-situ recovery and upgrading oil and gas processing. Springer International Publishing AG, CH-6330 Cham (ZG), Switzerland.
(11) Jalilov et al. (2017). Ultra-high surface area activated porous asphalt for CO2 capture through competitive adsorption at high pressures. Adv. Energy Mater. 2017, 7, 1600693. Supplementary Materials.
(B) In Situ Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery From LO-HO-B-K (Light-Oil-Heavy-Oil-Bitumen-Kerogen) System
(12) Egboga et al. (2017). A feasibility study of thermal stimulation in unconventional shale reservoirs. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering. Vol. 154, pgs. 576–588
(13) Lee et al. (2016). A comprehensive simulation model of kerogen pyrolysis for the in-situ upgrading of oil shales. SPE Journl. 21(5), pgs.1,612-1,630.
(14) Ayodele, O.R. (2015). Dynamic model work flow for oil shale. Shell Internal Report No. SR.15.11414. June 2015. Restricted.
(C) General Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Advances Relevant to HO-B
(15) Feynman, R. P. (1960). There's plenty of room at the bottom. Engineering and Science. Vol., 23, No. 5, pgs. 22-36.
(16) Drexler, K.E. (1992). Nanosystems: molecular machinery, manufacturing, and computation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York, New York, USA.
(17) Karniadakis, et al. (2005). Microflows and nanoflows: Fundamentals and simulation. Springer Science+Business Media LLC, New York, New York, USA.
(18) Hornyak et al. (2008). Introduction to nanoscience. CRC Press, an imprint of Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, Boca Raton, Florida, USA.
(19) Grabow, L.C. and Mavrikakis, M. (2008). Nanocatalysis beyond the gold-rush era. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Vol. 47, pgs. 7390-7392.
(20) Dresselhaus, M.S., Black, M.R., Meunier, V. and Rabin, O. (2017). Chapter 9: Nanowires. In Bhushan, B. (Ed.). Springer handbook of nanotechnology. 4th Edition. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, pgs. 249-301.
(D) Advances in Nanoparticles-Enhanced Heat Generation and Transfer
(21) Choi S. and Eastman, J.A. (1995). Enhancing thermal conductivity of fluids with nanoparticles. Paper presented at ASME Inter. Mech. Eng. Congress & Exposition, Nov. 12-17, 1995, San Francisco, CA, USA.
(22) Lee et al. (1999). Measuring thermal conductivity of fluids containing oxide nanoparticles. ASME Journal of Heat Transfer. Vol. 121, pgs. 280 - 289
(23) Wang, X. and Xu, X. (1999). Thermal conductivity of nanoparticle-fluid mixture. Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, Vol. 13, No. 4, pgs. 474-480.
(24) Putnam et al. (2006). Thermal conductivity of nanoparticle suspensions. Journal of Applied Physics. Vol. 99, Issue 8, pgs. 084308-1 - 084308-6.
(25) Nuemann et al. (2013). Solar vapor generation enabled by nanoparticles. ACS Nano. Vol. 7, No. 1, pgs. 42-49.
(E) Advances in Nanoparticles Preparations Relevant to HO-B
(26) Zeng et al. (2016). Emergence of hierarchical structural complexities in nanoparticles and their assembly. Science. Vol. 354, Issue 6319, pgs. 1580-1584. Supplementary Materials.
(27) Zalineeva et al. (2017). Octahedral palladium nanoparticles as excellent hosts for electrochemically adsorbed and absorbed hydrogen. Science Advances. Vol. 3, No. 2, e1600542. Supplementary Materials.
(28) McHugh et al. (2017). Fabrication of fillable microparticles and other complex 3D microstructures. Science. 15 September 2017. Vol. 357, Issue 6356, 1138–1142. Supplementary Materials.
(29) Jagadeesh et al. (2017). MOF-derived cobalt nanoparticles catalyze a general synthesis of amines. Science. 20 October 2017 . Vol. 358, Issue 6361, 326-332. Supplementary Materials.
(30) Gu et al. (2019). Design and control of gas diffusion process in a nanoporous soft crystal. Science. 25 January 2019 . Vol. 363, Issue 6425, 387-390. Supplementary Materials.
(31) Chen et al. (2019). Interface and heterostructure design in polyelemental nanoparticles. Science. 1 March 2019 . Vol. 363, Issue 6430, 959-964. Supplementary Materials.
(32) Ryoo, R. (2019). Birth of a class of nanomaterial. Nature. 7 November 2019 . Vol. 575, 40-41.
(F) Structures and Flow Assurances
(33) Mullins et al. (2007) Asphaltenes, heavy oils, and petroleomics. Springer Science+Business Media LLC, New York, New York, USA. Cover and TOC
(34) Sheinfux et al. (2017). Observation of Anderson localization in disordered nanophotonic structures. Science. 2 June 2017. Vol. 356, Issue 6341, 953-956. Supplementary Materials.
(35) Knebel et al. (2017). Defibrillation of soft porous metal-organic frameworks with electric fields. Science. 20 October 2017 . Vol. 358, Issue 6361, 347-351. Supplementary Materials.
(36) Shen et al. (2018). Ordered macro-microporous metal-organic framework single crystals. Science. 12 January 2018 . Vol. 359, Issue 6372, 206-210. Supplementary Materials.
(G) Non-Fuel Usage of HO-B
(37) Petersen, J.C. (1987). The potential use of tar sand bitumen as paving asphalt. Presentation at the 1987 Summer Meeting of the Interstate Oil Compact Comm, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, USA June 22-24, 1987.
(38) ASTM. (2009). Standard specification for viscosity-graded asphalt cement for use in pavement construction. Designation: D3381/D3381M – 09a.
(39) Esfeh et al. (2011). Properties of modified bitumen obtained from natural bitumen by adding pyrolysis fuel oil. Inter J. of Chemical Eng. & Applications. Vol. 2 , No. 3, pgs. 168-172.
(40) Ehinola et al. (2012). Softening point and penetration index of bitumen from parts of Southwestern Nigeria. NAFTA. Vol. 63, No. 9-10, Pgs. 319-323.
(41) Adebayo, F.F. and Jimoh, Y.A. (2015). Production and cost of cold patch road mats with bitumen extracted from Nigerian tar sand. Nigerian Journal of Technology. Vol. 34, No. 2, pgs. 245–253.
(42) Olabemiwo et al .(2015). Preliminary investigation on modification of Agbabu natural bitumen with some polymeric materials. Inter. J. of Scientific & Eng. Research. Vol. 6, Issue 9, pgs. 1342-1349.
(H) Economics of HO-B
(43) Senturk, Y. (2011). Chapter 7: Evaluation of Petroleum Reserves and Resources. In SPE/AAPG/WPC/SPEE/SEG's PRMS 2011 Guide, pgs. 109-127.
(44) Chan, P. and Etherington, J. (2011). Chapter 8: Unconventional Resources Estimation - Introduction, Extra Heavy Oil and Bitumen. In In SPE/AAPG/WPC/SPEE/SEG's PRMS 2011 Guide, pgs. 128-134.
(45) Lewis, I. and Jacobs. J. (2016). Bottom of the barrel. Petroleum Economist. May 2016, pgs. 28-29.
(46) Ayodele, O. R. and Odumah, G. (2017). Economics of a 1,000-B/D in-situ bitumen project in southwestern Nigeria. SPE Economics & Management. 9(4), pgs. 117-127.
(I) Patent-Research Relationship
(47) de Rassenfosse, G. and Pottelsberghe de la Potteriebcde, B. (2009). A policy insight into the R&D–patent relationship. Research Policy. June 2009. Vol. 38, Issue 5, 779-792.
(48) Ahmadpoor, M. and Jones, B.F. (2017). The dual frontier: Patented inventions and prior scientific advance. Science. 11 August 2017. Vol. 357, Issue 6351, 583–587.