## 3 Results and Discussion
The company designs products for sterile processing areas in hospital environments, offering low-temperature sterilization products for hospitals and outpatient surgical centers [72]. According to information generated by the database used in this search (DWPI) on the distribution of the number of patent applications by companies, TSO\({}_{3}\) Inc. filed several applications in the last 20 years, varying in number and having presented a peak in 2013, and always maintained a constant production of patentable technologies, with applications of at least 10 patents between 2013 and 2019. Some companies have documents with diversified legal status, i.e., patents alive (pending, granted), dead (expired, revoked, lapsed), or indeterminate. The second depositor company is Ethicon Inc., a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary that develops, manufactures, and markets sutures, bandages, staplers, and other wound-closure products [73]. This company went from a lower number of patents filed from 2006 to 2009, to 32 patent applications in 2018. The third depositor, Renosem Co. Ltd., is a supplier of low-temperature plasma sterilizers that aims to ensure infection prevention and microbial reduction. In addition, it develops several medical devices using high-tech plasma applications [74]. Renosem's contribution in patent filings related to technologies involving O\({}_{3}\) occurred mostly between 2007 and 2013. Yuyama Mfg Co. only has dead patents (9). The main countries and regions of deposit of this type of technology are demonstrated in Figure 3. This result usually highlights the main protection sites of technologies related to disinfection chambers using O3 gg) or O3(aq). South Korea and United States have the largest number of patent applications, with a total of 103 and 91 applications, respectively. Figure 3: Geographical distribution of patent applications related to O3(g) or O3(aq) disinfection devices or chambers; European Patent Office (EP), WO (or World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)). Figure 2: Analysis of number of patent documents. (a) general legal status of the publications found; (b) number of publications per applicant. From Korea, patent number KR1863560B1 deals with a sterilization chamber for medical equipment with support for supplying O3(g) to a reaction chamber; patent number KR2012093790A can also be used in healthcare, highlighting that both O3(g) and hydrogen peroxide are used in a mixture for sanitization. Many patent applications by the country are filed in the United States, which corroborates other outcomes found in this technological assessment, indicating that the United States is the largest market for the development of these inventions, and the most active in technological development. Thus, examples include documents no. US10660980B2 (sanitation system using O3(g) for cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization of various objects such as medical devices. It comprises an O3-generating device coupled with a container to receive O3(g) to sanitize objects), US10632220B2 (medical-device sterilization cabinet as endoscope), and US10632218B2 (method for the continuous debacterization of solid food products that involves transporting the product through the entrance of the chamber in continuous motion, so that the product is continuously exposed to the O3 atmosphere inside the chamber). Other countries were identified related to these results: China received 60 orders, Canada 42, and Japan 45 requests for deposits. At least two international organizations were identified, namely, the European Patent Office (EPO) and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) with 72 and 39 applications, respectively. Through these organizations, several international applications can be made through a single application, such as the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) [75].