TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Quebec-based lithium project developer Nemaska Lithium on Wednesday reported that its two core patents for its proprietary methods to produce lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate were published as part of the review process under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

The TSX-V-listed junior said its patent applications, initially filed in April and May 2012 as US provisional applications, received PCT numbers and that, taken together with the applications' publishing, represented critical steps in filing and receiving patents in 148 PCT member States which included US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, China, Japan, India, Australia, Brazil and many more.

The PCT is an international patent law treaty. It provided a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting countries.

The first of Nemaska's patent applications covered its core invention of producing lithium hydroxide from a lithium sulphate solution using electrolysis technology. This patent application also covered impurity removal systems in the process. The second patent application covered transforming lithium hydroxide into lithium carbonate.

Following the initial patent applications, Nemaska also filed four additional patents covering the optimisation and evolution of the technology as a result of the corporation's ongoing optimisation programmes, which were still in the review process. Nemaska believed PCT numbers would be assigned to these applications “in the near future”.

"We continue to evaluate our ongoing process optimisation programmes for new patent opportunities and we will be vigilant in the protection of our intellectual property (IP).

“The true value of our IP portfolio is becoming understood by both the lithium industry and the investment community, especially as one witnesses the evolution of electric vehicle batteries and the shift toward the adoption of lithium hydroxide as the chemical of choice over lithium carbonate,” Nemaska president and CEO Guy Bourassa commented.

He added that Nemaska’s discussions with both end-users and existing producers of lithium chemical compounds continued to advance. “The publication of our patent applications is an important step and strengthens our value proposition,” he said.

Nemaska is also developing one of the richest spodumene lithium hard rock deposits in the world, both in volume and grade. Spodumene concentrate produced at Nemaska's Whabouchi mine and from other global sources would be shipped to the company's lithium hydroxide/carbonate processing plant located in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, in Quebec. This plant would transform spodumene concentrate into high-purity lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate for the growing lithium battery market.

The Whabouchi deposit, in the James Bay Region, near the Cree community of Nemaska, was expected to have an initial mine life of 18 years.

Nemaska’s TSX-V-listed stock traded 7.32% higher on Wednesday at C$0.22 apiece.