Countries competing for patents on electric vehicle battery technology

Some analysts said that in the next few years, Japan will take the lead in the United States, Europe and other countries in the intellectual property competition in the field of electric vehicles. However, as the electric vehicle industry is in a rapid growth period and many key technologies have not yet emerged mature solutions, the United States and Europe rely on their strong basic research advantages, and it is very likely that they will take the lead in making breakthroughs in certain key technologies and regain competition. Advantage. In addition, the rising stars of the auto industry such as South Korea and China continue to increase investment in R&D for electric vehicles. It is expected that the competitive landscape of electric vehicles in the future will become more complicated.

At present, the research of Japanese batteries for pure electric vehicles mainly focuses on lithium batteries, followed by lead-acid batteries, nickel-hydrogen batteries, and sodium batteries. Judging from the total number of patent applications worldwide, Japan has the largest number of patent applications related to storage batteries for pure electric vehicles and their management systems. Judging from the number of patent applications in Japan, more than 90% of patent applications are also from Japanese applicants. Whether it is from the perspective of the number of patent applications in the world or the share of Japanese applicants in Japan’s patent applications, Japan is the strongest in the field of batteries and management systems for purely electric vehicles. patented technology.

As the world’s largest automobile production and consumption country, research on US batteries for pure electric vehicles is mainly focused on lithium batteries. Lithium battery-related patents account for more than 70% of the patents on power batteries, followed by lead-acid batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries, and Air battery and sodium battery. From the perspective of the total number of patent applications worldwide, as of June 2010, the number of patent applications for batteries and its management systems for pure electric vehicles in the United States ranked second after Japan. Judging from the number of domestic patent applications in the United States, among the patent applications relating to batteries for pure electric vehicles and their management systems, the number of patents from Japanese applicants is the largest, approaching 60% of the total, while patent applications from US applicants The quantity is inferior to Japan.

The research of batteries for German pure electric vehicles mainly focuses on lithium batteries, followed by lead-acid batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries, sodium batteries, and air batteries. From the perspective of the total number of patent applications worldwide, as of June 2010, the number of patent applications related to battery and its management systems for pure electric vehicles in Germany ranks 6th in the world, which is very different from the number of Japanese patents ranked first. Large, accounting for only 11% of Japanese applications. Judging from the number of domestic patent applications in Germany, German applicants hold about 43% of the total patents, which is higher than Japan ranked second. Globally, Germany's technical strength in the field of pure electric vehicle batteries and its management systems is far less than that of Japan. However, within the scope of the country, Germany has strong technical advantages and the number of patents is higher than Japan. (Keoch)