The CLEAN ENERGY PATENT GROWTH INDEX (CEPGI), published quarterly by the Cleantech Group at Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C. provides an indication of the trend of innovative activity in the Clean Energy sector from 2002 to the present. It also tracks success rates of earned patents by ranking Patent Owners, along with the Countries and the U.S. States which receive the most clean energy patents.
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The granting of patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is often cited as a measure of the inventive activity and evidence of the effectiveness of research & development investments. Patents are considered to be such an indicator, because to be awarded a patent, it requires not only the efforts of inventors to develop new and non-obvious innovations but also successful handling by patent counsel to shepherd a patent application through the PTO. Thus, the granting of a patent is an indicator that efforts at innovation have been successful and that an innovation had enough perceived value to justify the time and expense in procuring the patent.
The CEPGI (shown below annually) tracks the granting of U.S. patents for the following sub-components: Solar, Wind, Hybrid/electric vehicles, Fuel Cells, Hydroelectric, Tidal/wave, Geothermal, Biomass/biofuels and other clean renewable energy.
U.S. patents for clean-energy technologies in 2009 were at an all time high with 200 more patents than 2008 at1125.
As depicted in the below breakdown of the CEPGI by its sub-components, patents in fuel cells and hybrid/electric vehicles were each up over twenty percent over 2008 with solar patents up sixty percent and biomass/biofuel energy patents up two hundred sixty percent. Fuel Cells, wind, and biomass/biofuel energy patents were also at all time highs in 2009. In contrast, hydroelectric and tidal patents decreased in 2009 while geothermal patents were up only one patent over the year prior.
Fuel cell patents continued to dwarf the other components of the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index in 2009 with over four times the number of patents of nearest competitors wind and solar. In 2009 solar patents returned to levels last seen in 2003 and were barely edged out by wind patents for second in the Clean Energy patent standings. Wind patents finally showed signs of leveling off after seven years of big increases with an increase of only one patent over 2008. In contrast solar energy patents appear poised to overtake wind patents to become the new second fiddle to fuel cell patents. Patents in hybrid/electric vehicles regained its consistency exactly matching the totals for 2006 and 2007 after falling in 2008. Biomass/biofuel patents grew at a torrid pace and our research shows a large volume of patent applications in the pipeline foretelling future growth in this area.
The top patent owners since 2002 are shown below, ranked relative to total number of patents, and also annotated to show the 2008 and 2009 contributions:
The top clean energy patent holders in 2009 were dominated by automobile companies which occupied five of the top ten spots. Honda led and GM came in second, despite its well publicized troubles in 2009, while Toyota closely followed almost doubling its own total from 2008-again despite its recent troubles. Nissan rounded out the automotive competitors. GE continued its strong showing in clean energy patents having over twice the patents of its nearest wind patent competitor, Aloys Wobben, the owner of Enercon GmbH of Germany. Samsung beat out the other non-automotive fuel cell patents holders with Panasonic and Toshiba not far behind. Meanwhile, long time fuel cell patent owners UTC Power Corp, Plug Power and Ballard lagged. Canon, far and away the solar photovoltaic patent leader, missed the top ten and was the only solar patent holder even close. Of additional note, relative to 2009, Panasonic had 29 clean energy patents after having had only 6 in all the prior years. Further, Genedics had 8 clean energy patents in 2009 (several in overlapping sectors) after having none in the years prior.
As depicted below in the Fuel Cell patent owner breakdown, Honda was also tops in Fuel Cells over the seven year period, along with leading in 2008 and 2009. GM was again one fuel cell patent behind Honda in 2009 as in the year before. Toyota, Samsung and Nissan all had over 20 patents in 2009 to round out the top 5 for that year. The rest of the top 10 since 2002 had 10 or less fuel cell patents in 2009. Also, worth noting due to its own recent announcements, Bloom Energy had 8 fuel cell patents in 2009 after having none in 2008 and a total of 4 in all prior years.
As indicated above, GE is the all time wind patent leader and again dominated the wind field in 2009 followed by Aloys Wobben, the owner of Enercon GmbH of Germany. The other grantees of wind patents in 2009 were led by Nordex Energy (10), Repower Systems (AG) (8), Vestas (4) and Hitachi (8), as depicted above. Also, of note Genedics LLC, despite not making the top 10 list since 2002, had 7 granted wind patents in 2009 putting it in 5th place for that year. As is evident from the figure, the vast majority of the activity in wind patents has been driven by General Electric and Aloys Wobben.
As depicted below, Canon continues to lead the other solar patent owners since 2002. However, Genedics LLC was first in solar patents in 2009 despite not having any clean energy patents prior. Mario Rabinowitz at 4 had one more patent than Canon in 2009.
Applied Materials had 5 solar patents and Lumetta, Inc. had 4 in 2009 despite not making the top 10 overall since 2002. The top 6 overall patent owners since 2002 remained the same relative to last year while Konarka had only 1 patent and fell in the rankings with Sunpower Corp advancing. GE had no solar patents in 2009 and came in 10th overall.
Honda continues to lead hybrid/electric vehicle patents overall since 2002, but Toyota led in 2009 at 18, as shown in the below figure. The top ten overall hybrid/electric vehicle patent owners remained consistent relative to the total through 2008 except for a slight scrambling of the number 7, 8, 9, and 10 spots, particularly Aisin AW Co. Ltd., Hitachi, Suzuki and Denso Corp. Relative to 2009, Honda, Ford, and GM followed Toyota in that order. Next were Hyundai, Denso Corp and Nissan. Newcomer, and electric car maker, Tesla had 4 hybrid/electric vehicle patents in 2009-their first since tracking began in 2002. Also, PAICE LLC had 3 in 2009 with another in 2008.
Also, although not depicted above, Ocean Power Technologies continues to lead in the Tidal sector since 2002 picking up 1 patent in 2009 and has a total of 12 since 2002. SRI International picked up 2 patents in 2009 as did Christopher Catlin, CEO at Bourne Energy. In hydroelectric patentees, Simon Srybnik and Louis Srybnik had two patents duplicating their 2008 total while William Kelly had one.
Nuovo Pignone S.p.A. was granted three geothermal patents in 2009 while 7 other entities, including Genedics cited above, each had one patent. Kalex, LLC continues to lead in geothermal patents (8) despite not having any patents in 2008 or 2009. GE is the next closest at 3 total geothermal patents.
In the biofuel/biomass area, the Research Foundation of State University of New York continues to lead overall while accruing no patents in 2009. Stanley Consultants and Tsinghua University each had two biofuel/biomass patents in 2009 while 45 other entities each had one patent.
As depicted below relative to the top university patent owners, we have found that the University of California continues to outpace second place California Institute of Technology dating to 2002, but the gap has narrowed slightly with the University of California picking up one patent in 2009 while the California Institute of Technology picked up three. The Research Foundation of the State of New York is a distant third picking up one patent in 2009. The University of Florida gained three patents in 2009 while several others accrued two including: the University of Illinois, Princeton, Uan Ze University, the Technical University of Denmark, the Univeristy of St. Andrews, University of Connecticut, and Academia Sinica (with Everlight USA).
Geographically, U.S. patent owners and inventors had slightly less than the rest of the world in the number of U.S. patents granted in the Clean Energy field over the period 2002-2009 with 49 percent of the granted U.S. patents as depicted below.
Patent applicants from Japan (28 percent) and Germany (8 percent) were issued the second and third largest number of U.S. patents. Canada and South Korea followed as depicted above with South Korea surpassing Canada in 2008. Japan and the US appear on an upward trajectory while the others are holding steady and the number of Canadian clean energy patents decreasing.
Michigan leads the other U.S. states in the Clean Energy area at 24 percent of the US clean energy patents largely based on the fuel cell and hybrid electric vehicle activities of the car manufacturers. California is next at 15 percent while New York is at 12 percent based largely on GE’s wind patents and several fuel cell manufacturers. Connecticut has 7 percent with most being fuel cell patents to UTC. Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Florida follow.
As depicted in the line chart, Michigan’s share of the U.S. clean energy patents is trending slightly downwardly California’s share is on an upswing. New York had also been on an upswing until 2009 while the others are far below and trending downwardly.
As depicted below, Fuel Cell patents since 2002 are dominated by the U.S. Japan, and Germany. The U.S. leads the world with 50 percent of U.S. patents in fuel cells followed by Japan with 30 percent and Germany with 8 percent. Within the U.S., Michigan (29 %), Connecticut (12%), New York (12%), and California (11%) lead.
The U.S. is slightly behind the rest of the world in the number of U.S. wind patents granted since 2002 with 47 percent as depicted above largely on the strength of GE. Germany follows with 20 percent due to Aloys Wobben, and Japan and Denmark tie for third at 7 percent. New York leads US states with 34 percent of the US wind patents thanks to GE. California follows with 15 percent while Texas and Illinois lag at 5 percent.
As in wind, the U.S. has slightly less than half the granted solar patents since 2002 at 49 percent as depicted below. Japan is next at 30 percent and Germany is at 6 percent. California leads U.S. States with 34 percent of the U.S. total followed by Illinois at 7 percent, and Massachusetts and New York at 7 and 6 percent, respectively.
Japan leads with 49 percent of the granted U.S. patents in Hybrid/Electric vehicles since 2002 as depicted below. The U.S. has even less of the granted U.S. patents in this sector relative to those described above at 39 percent of the granted U.S. patents. Korea has 5 percent while Germany has 3 percent. Michigan leads U.S. states with an overwhelming 67 percent of the U.S. share of the granted U.S. patents in this area. California and Ohio have 7 and 5 percent, respectively, while Colorado, New York, Illinois and Florida each have three percent or less.
We have also analyzed the relative concentration of patents among patent owners in each sector as presented in the bar chart below with the different colors indicating the relative distribution of patents among the top one percent of patent owners, the 95-99th percentile (i.e., middle 1-5 percent), 80-95th percentile (i.e., middle 5-20 percent), and the bottom eighty percent of patent owners.
As depicted, Fuel Cell and Wind are the most concentrated in the top one percent of patent owners with 31 and 29 percent of the patents in each of these areas, respectively. Wind is the most stratified between the top (29%) the bottom (39%) having the lowest percentage (32) in the mid range between the 80-99th percentile of patent owners. In fact, 68 percent of wind patents are owned by the top one and bottom 80 percent of patent owners. Solar patents may be the most evenly distributed with 20 percent of patents in the top one percent of patent owners, fifteen percent in the next 4 percent, twenty two percent in the next 15 percent and forty four percent of patents in the bottom 80 percent of patent owners. Solar thus has the highest concentration of patents among the bottom 80 percent of patent owners. Hybrid/electric vehicle patents had the highest percentage in the top 1-20 percent range at 53 percent of all hybrid/electric patents.
The CEPGI is updated quarterly and is occasionally supplemented with related articles posted on www.cleanenergypatentgrowthindex.com or http://www.cepgi.com/
Please contact us at info@cleanenergypatentgrowthindex.com if you have any questions or would like us to email you when we have updated this page or the CEPGI.
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