UM6P has already filed 91 patents — and the pace is picking up

The Essentials

• UM6P has filed 91 patents between 2018 and 2026, marking an almost uninterrupted upward trajectory. More than 120 inventors and some fifteen countries have taken part in these filings. 
• Over half of the patents target the circular economy and waste valorization — the idea of “hacking the mine” to extract added value from natural resources. 
• Several innovations have already moved beyond the lab: an anti‑cheating device used in baccalaureate exams, laser technology exported to the United States, and pumps manufactured in Morocco. 
• In batteries, the university has launched the industrial venture NGB Materials, producing a material for electric vehicle batteries from phosphoric acid.

The Details

It is a campus set in the middle of an arid plain, about fifty kilometers from Marrakech. Buildings of ochre earth, students crossing the pathways — and inside laboratories unmarked from the outside, researchers spend their days breaking down one thing: phosphate rock. At UM6P, the mine is a starting point, not the other way around.

The word our interlocutors used most often that day is one you wouldn’t expect to hear at a university: “hacking.” Hacking the mine — in other words, exploring it differently, diverting it from its conventional use, and extracting everything it still contains that no one had previously recovered. This philosophy is embodied in a tangible figure: 91 patents filed between 2018 and 2026.

A steadily rising trend almost every year

Ninety-one patents in nine calendar years. To understand what that means, one only has to follow the trajectory: two patents in 2018, when the university had just opened. Since then, the curve has risen almost without interruption — and in the first five months of 2026 alone, around a dozen patents have already been filed.

Behind these filings stand more than 120 inventors — and an ambition that extends far beyond Morocco’s borders. The patents are filed in around fifteen countries because, as one researcher put it, "the playing field is global." A patent filed only in Morocco offers no protection once you cross the border. That is why they are filed in the United States and China — where major industrial battles are fought.

More than half of these patents focus on the circular economy and waste valorization — in other words, turning into a resource what was discarded yesterday. That is the heart of the matter. The rest is divided among green agriculture, environmental technologies, digital mining, and energy storage.

Two reference processes: flotation and demetallization

The story does not begin in 2018. It starts in 1973, when Morocco repatriated a phosphate research center from France — CERPHOS. From this legacy emerged two technologies, developed and later refined by UM6P, which are now operating in the group’s factories.

The first is known as reverse flotation. The principle is simpler than it sounds: in raw rock, phosphorus is mixed with other minerals. Flotation brings the non-“P”-bearing elements to the surface and removes them from the ore, enriching its phosphate content.

The second is called demetallization. Here, the focus shifts to phosphoric acid: the process removes the most problematic metals, with cadmium at the forefront. Some of these elements have value. They are removed, yes — but with the aim of recovering and potentially reselling them.

"Before a technology reaches the factory, it goes through what we call the valley of death," I’m told. The valley of death is the moment when an idea works in the laboratory but has not yet scaled to industrial levels. Many ideas perish there. The university’s role, precisely, is to help its inventions cross to the other side.

When research hits the streets

Several of these inventions have already moved beyond the laboratory to become products, companies — and sometimes even exports.

Take the baccalaureate, for example. Few people know that the anti-cheating system securing the national exam was born in a UM6P lab. A non-intrusive technology that doubled the fraud detection rate. The same team designed diplomas impossible to counterfeit — and the technology is now being exported.

Next, consider a laser: a device capable of real-time analysis of phosphate content in ore, without contact — somewhat like a customs scanner. This technology, developed in Benguerir, is now being exported to the United States. A Moroccan invention sold to America.

Lastly, pumps — less spectacular, but just as significant. A company born from the university now designs and manufactures its own pumps in Morocco, where they were once imported. Its first client? The OCP Group itself, a major consumer of pumps.

In the global chain of gigafactories

If one adventure deserves to be remembered, it is that of batteries. LFP batteries are made of lithium, iron — and phosphate. Morocco holds 70% of the world’s known phosphate reserves.

UM6P researchers have developed a process to manufacture the active material for these batteries using the group’s phosphoric acid. Two patents protect this know-how. From this research emerged an industrial venture, NGB Materials, supported by the group’s innovation arm. The goal: to produce battery components in Morocco and anchor the country within the global supply chain of the so-called gigafactories.

What these patents reveal

These 91 patents are not a collection of trophies stored away. They tell the story of a shift — that of an emblematic institution that once sold its rock by the ton and is now learning to sell its intelligence.

A filed patent is not yet a factory, and not all these inventions will necessarily become commercial successes. UM6P is a university built around research — a research university that also teaches, not the other way around.

It is often said that Morocco’s primary resource is its human capital. Here, on this arid plain, gray matter is worth more than raw material.