Oyster Girl Oysters, LLC is pleased to announce that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted utility patent number 12,102,066 to Lawrence Rudner and Willem Roosenberg for their innovative approach to flipping oyster cages. The patented system, titled “Aquaculture Biofouling Management using Axle Guided Cage Flipping,” introduces a method designed to inexpensively reduce labor and improve efficiency in maintaining oyster farms.
Growing oysters in surface cages has become increasingly popular due to faster growth rates, improved flavor profiles, reduced predation, and easier monitoring. However, biofouling—the accumulation of marine organisms on submerged surfaces—poses a significant challenge. This buildup can hinder water flow, impede nutrient access, and obstruct oyster growth. Regular cage flipping has proven effective in combating biofouling by exposing fouled surfaces to air, which dries out and removes attached organisms, but requires great physical labor and significant time. To be effective, floating cages should be flipped every week during the peak growing season.
In contrast to usual approaches involving intense labor, the newly patented Oyster Girl Flipper features a longline of aquaculture cages, a flipping ramp attached to a workboat, and hard plastic cages equipped with a float on one side and a hollow axle on the other. As the workboat moves parallel to the longline, cages seamlessly ascend the ramp, and gravity flips them, addressing the biofouling issue. No extra staff is required.
Pamela Getson, President of Oyster Girl Oysters, LLC, commented on the innovation: “The Oyster Girl Flipper represents a significant leap forward in oyster farming technology. By streamlining the cage flipping process, we’re not only improving efficiency but also enhancing the quality of our oysters. This innovation aligns perfectly with our commitment to sustainable aquaculture and producing exceptional oysters for our customers.”
Funded by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Chesapeake Oyster Alliance’s “Oyster Innovation Awards” provided seed money to develop the prototype into a working system. Tanner Council, Senior Manager of the Chesapeake Oyster Alliance, stated, “By automating the flipping process, the Oyster Girl Flipper can reduce the physical demands of cage maintenance, potentially making oyster farming accessible to a broader range of individuals.”
Rudner and Roosenburg plan to make the refined blueprints freely available to individual oyster farmers in order to increase access to this technology for small-scale operations. Oyster Girl Oysters was recently supported to further refine the system through the SOAR Resiliency Fund. Lawrence Rudner commented, “Based on our experience using the Oyster Girl Flipper at the Oyster Girl Oyster farm, we believe we can next significantly reduce the entire format of the system.”
Sally McGee from The Nature Conservancy added, “We are excited to support this project through the SOAR Resiliency Fund for its potential to increase small-scale farm efficiency.”
