Global patent analysis of power lithium-ion battery electrodes

The patent analysis data comes from the Derwent patent database, and the search deadline is March 2014. TDA is used as the data analysis tool to analyze the global trend of the patents related to power lithium-ion battery electrodes.

1. Application Status

Analyzing the overall trend of patent applications will help companies understand the technical status of the industry, grasp their own position, follow the mainstream technology development direction of the industry, deploy technical forces with emphasis, and achieve efficient technology research and development and innovation.

Patent applications in the field of power lithium-ion battery electrodes generally show an increasing trend, as shown in Figure 1.

(1) Slow development period

Before 1955, it was in a period of slow development. During this period, the number of patent applications was relatively small.

(2) Rapid development period

From 1995 to 2005, patent applications were in a period of rapid development, and during this period, the number of patent applications increased steadily.

(3) Jump period

During the five-year period from 2006 to 2010, the number of patent applications increased by leaps and bounds. The number of applications has increased from 1,000 to 3,000 per year. During this period, the market demand for power lithium-ion batteries has increased, which is reflected in the global patent applications, and the number of patent applications has increased rapidly.

(4) Stable development period

From the trend chart, the growth rate of patent applications has declined after 2010. During the period from 2010 to 2012, the electrode technology of power lithium-ion batteries encountered development bottlenecks. After 2012, the number of patent applications has dropped significantly, which is due to the 2-3 year gap between the time of patent application and the time of publication. Reflected in the overall global application volume, the number of patent applications for power lithium-ion battery electrodes during this period was in a stable development period.

2. Analysis of the application situation in the country of origin

The source country analysis can reflect the technological strength of different countries, and the destination country reflects the main target market of enterprises in the technology source country. By understanding the patent layout of the target market and implementing effective patent strategies, enterprises can effectively avoid infringement risks in markets with high patent layout intensity, and make favorable layouts in emerging markets with low patent layout intensity to seize market opportunities .

After analysis, Japan, the United States and South Korea are the main technology source countries in the global power lithium-ion battery electrode technology patent applications. Japan has an absolute advantage in the number of patent applications in this field.

Figure 2 shows the patent application situation of the world’s main technology source countries. Since 1995, the number of patent applications in Japan has remained the first in the world; after 2008, the number of patent applications in the United States has increased rapidly; after 2009, the number of patent applications in South Korea and Germany has increased rapidly.

Japan is the main market for patent layout, with high market maturity and fierce competition; the United States, South Korea and China are also the main countries for patent layout. In emerging market countries in South America, the patent layout is relatively weak.

The patent layout of the global patent source countries is shown in Figure 3. The main patent source countries and organizations have a large number of patent layouts in economically developed countries and regions such as Japan and the United States. Taiwan is one of the main areas of Japan’s patent layout. It can be seen that Japan is a country where major patent source countries focus on distribution, and its market competition is also relatively fierce. Judging from the situation of the countries where PCT patents are published, the priority countries of power-type lithium-ion battery electrode technology have carried out the layout of many countries through the PCT method. Japan, South Korea and the United States are the main countries where patents flow. For China, the number of patent applications abroad is very small. Except for patents in its own country, the number of patent applications in other countries and patent organizations does not exceed 20. The number of overseas invention patent applications is an important manifestation of enterprises going abroad and actively participating in international competition. There are few patent applications in foreign countries, which reflects that the Chinese applicants have relatively weak technology research and development capabilities, their competitiveness in overseas markets is not strong, and their awareness and ability to develop markets in technologically developed countries are not enough.

3. Main Applicant

Among the top 20 applicants for global patent applications, Japanese companies occupy 17 seats, and South Korean company LG ranks 7th in terms of the number of companies. Samsung ranks 13th. Korean companies are the main competitors of Japanese companies.

Figure 4 shows the patent application trend of the main applicants in the field of power-type lithium-ion battery electrode technology, and the figure shows the patent application trend of the top six patent applicants in the number of patent applications. Toyota did not have as many patent applications as Sanyo and Hitachi before 2000. After 2000, the number of patent applications increased rapidly, and when the number of applications peaked in 2011, the number of patent applications was more than that of the other five companies combined. The patent application volume of Nissan and other companies was in a stable development period before 2000, but after 2000, there was no peak in patent application volume like Toyota’s, and the annual patent application volume was less than 50. It can be seen that the investment and attention of enterprises in power lithium-ion batteries is far behind that of Toyota.