The intellectual property enabling gigafactory battery cell production: An in-depth analysis of international patenting trends

Greitemeier, Tim; Lux, Simon

Abstract

Driven by the increasing demand for energy storage solutions in various applications, including electric vehicles and renewable energy systems, the lithium-ion battery (LIB) industry has experienced a remarkable surge in growth and innovation in the last decades. This growth has triggered a debate on the strategic use of both implicit and explicit knowledge in the LIB sector. The integration of specialized Know-How and innovative intellectual property (IP) shows the potential to accelerate development, simplify production processes and reduce costs. Data science methods enable the evaluation of a variety of processes and their associated costs in numerous technology areas. Although multiple data science approaches have been applied on LIBs, there has been insufficient focus on linking the implicit and the explicit knowledge of the individual production steps throughout the battery production value chain. Consequently, a novel patent analysis framework was used to help decisionmakers in companies and policy involved in the LIB industry in recognizing potential avenues for further advancement and invest in new technologies to produce LIBs. In total, this study assesses three sub questions: First, identification of strengths and weaknesses across the value chain from a technological and regional perspective. The results show that China surpassed Japan in total patent count in 2018 and has now become the technology leader across the whole battery production value chain. The findings also clearly demonstrate that Japan served as a pioneer regarding the production, as it was the sole region with a significant number of patents granted from 1993 onwards. Second, the innovation potential of the individual steps was identified, thereby revealing formation and aging as the processes with the biggest innovation potential. Third, this work investigated the impact of a region's patent portfolio and found no correlation between the portfolio size and respective impact of a region. However, the United States' economic and scientific dominance globally is reflected by the patent portfolio, which emerged as the most impactful across all regions.