United States Patent and Trademark Office issued Patent No 12,572,882 on 10 March 2026 for Dr. Maxim Dulebenets' invention for the System of and Method for Optimizing Schedule Design via Collaborative Agreement Facilitation. The patented system enables shipping lines and terminal operators to facilitate cost-efficient and sustainable shipping operations. 

The invention establishes a system that analyzes operational factors such as vessel speed, fuel consumption, emissions, port handling rates among others to introduce a framework that models economic and environmental metrics for shipping routes and port operations. Then it evaluates collaborative agreements between shipping vessels and terminal operators to optimize operations to reduce economic and environmental cost.

The patent application was advanced under the USPTO Climate Change Mitigation Pilot Program and earlier development for the research behind it was featured in the Journal of Cleaner Production in 2022. Congratulations to Dr. Dulebents for this big achievement!