The first thing i would like to say is that the technology itself has been in commercial use for several decades, and cannot be patented. What they have patents on are specific designed, which anyone can create or modify an existing design for combustion chambers, gas compression, purification, dehydration, and storage.
biomass can be converted into hydrogen and carbon by several different micro-organisms and algea, most of the expense is not in the system design and implementation, it is in the maintenance - ensuring the system is not contaminated, maintaining the proper conditions in the combustion chamber, replenising the reactive organisms when necessary.
Can it be done on a large scale? sure, there have been several large scale biomass-to-hydrogen-to-electricity projects implemented, some with great success. However, the costs of maintaining these projects make them less efficient than wind or solar based electrolysis.
Space considerations are also a disadvantage with bio-mass systems, because a much larger reactor is needed to produce the same ammount of hydrogen from bio-mass that could be created from a small PV or wind generator.
It's simply not feasible to produce large scale hydrogen from bio-mass, except in specific applications, such as food processing plants for energy cost-reduction, where bio-mass is readily available.
Direct Energy Conversion from Renewable Sources, such as wind, solar, or hydro-electric generators when coupled with battery storage systems, are capable of producing hydrogen at a fraction of the costs of conventional electricity.