Beyond Meat has more than 15 patents. Eat Just has at least 10. Intellectual property isn’t the only asset an alt-meat maker needs, but it is the first building block to a company.
In 2023, one company — Impossible Foods — held more than half of the plant-based meat-related patents in both the U.S. and the EU, according to a Stanford University investigation.
This begs the question: What does Impossible know that hundreds of other plant-based alt-meat companies seem to have missed when it comes to intellectual property rights?
In such a collaborative sector, it seems somewhat counterintuitive to ruthlessly patent ideas, processes and inventions that could…