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. The CEPGI also ranks the leaders among Clean Energy 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.
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U.S. patents for clean-energy technologies in 2010 were at an all time high, up a remarkable 756 patents (almost 170 percent) over 2009 with a value of 1881. This is the largest year to year jump since we began tracking clean energy patents by over three times the previous year to year difference. This compares to a 31 percent increase generally for all patents from 2009 to 2010 - which was the best showing ever for patents generally. Clean energy innovation is clearly far outpacing technology in general.
As depicted in the below breakdown of the CEPGI by its sub- components, patents in fuel cells and wind were each up over fifty seven percent over 2009. Solar patents were up an astounding 134 percent while hybrid/electric vehicles were up sixty percent. Tidal energy and biomass/biofuel energy patents were up twenty eight and forty one percent, respectively, at fourteen patents each. Hydroelectric patents were up sixteen patents, an over five hundred percent increase. Geothermal patents was the only sector that decreased at five less patents than 2009, a fifty percent decrease. All of the technology sectors, except geothermal, were at all time highs in 2010, surpassing all previous records.
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Fuel cell patents continued to dwarf the other components of the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index in 2010 with 996 patents, almost three times the number of patents of nearest competitor solar (363). After being one patent apart in a virtual tie in 2009, solar soared ahead of wind patents in 2010 by almost 120 patents despite wind itself being up 89 patents over the prior year. Patents in hybrid/electric vehicles were at their highest level ever (at 168), up over 20 patents as compared to the next highest total reached in 2002. Biomass/biofuel and hydroelectric patents were also both at record levels (63, 19) in 2010. Tidal patents almost doubled from 26 to 40.
The top patent owners since 2002 are shown below, ranked relative to total number of patents, and also annotated to show the particular totals for the last three years:
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Over seven hundred entities contributed to the record total of clean energy patents in 2010. The top clean energy patent holders in 2010 were dominated by automobile companies which occupied six of the top ten spots. GM took the annual clean energy patent crown from last year's winner Honda. Samsung jumped to second place, largely on the strength of its fuel cell patents, overtaking Honda and Toyota relative to 2009. Toyota increased its annual total by 20 patents to get fourth place while GE increased by thirty to place in fifth. Nissan (6th), Ford (8th) and Hyundai (9th) rounded out the automobile competitors for 2010. GE placed fifth predominantly on the strength of its wind patents which was over twice the number of patents of its nearest wind patent competitor in 2010, Vestas Wind Systems. Panasonic came in 7th in 2010 to tie its 2009 showing on the strength of its fuel cell patents and exceeded the 29 patents from 2009 by five patents, after having had only 6 in all the prior years. Hitachi rounded out the top 10 with 23 patents which were predominantly in the fuel cell and wind areas. Canon, far and away the solar photovoltaic patent leader since 2002, missed the top ten with a 12th place showing in 2010 at 15 patents.
As depicted below in the Fuel Cell patent owner breakdown, Honda stayed at the top as all time leader but fell to third place in 2010 (2010 totals indicated in orange). GM took top honors in fuel cells beating out Samsung by 10 patents and Honda in 2010 by 18 patents. Toyota followed with almost half the number of patents in 2010 as GM. Panasonic had 34 patents and was in fifth place in 2010. Car companies, Nissan and Hyundai, came next. Idatech, maker of backup power fuel cell systems, had 14 patents in 2010 finishing eighth. United Technologies added 13 patents in 2010 to an overall fourth place finish edging out Samsung overall by about that amount. Delphi was tenth rounding out the automobile contribution in 2010. Six of the top ten fuel cell patent grantees were automobile entities. The other fuel cell grantees in 2010 were Plug Power and Matsushita. Plug power maintained its eighth place spot overall despite its slower patent accrual rate in the last few years. Tying for 11th place in 2010 were Canon, Toshiba and Bloom Energy with 12 patents. There were also 18 other entities with at least 5 fuel cell patents in 2010 including heavyweights Sanyo, Delphi, GE, Honeywell, Daimler, 3M and Samsung.
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As indicated above, GE is the all time wind patent leader and again dominated the wind field in 2010 doubling the number of wind patents by second place winner Vestas which had 19 more patents than the previous year and vaulted over longtime second place holder Aloys Wobben, the owner of Enercon GmbH of Germany. The other grantees of wind patents in 2010 were led by Nordex Energy (16), which came in fourth in 2010 and overall. Mitsubishi was fifth separated by one patent from the holders of a tie for sixth, wind component maker, LM Glasfiber, and Hitachi. Moshe Meller and Robert Vanderhye were next with a tie for 8th place while Repower again placed in the top ten in 2010 tying with Gamesa and Envision at 3 patents. A tie for two patents included Clipper Windpower, Genedics, and five others.
As depicted below, Canon continues to lead the other solar patent owners since 2002 but was an also ran in 2010. Applied Materials in eighth place overall as depicted took the 2010 solar crown over Sunpower by three patents. Du Pont and Emcore tied for third with ten patents while Konarka and Sharp tied with nine. Another tie existed in seventh place with Boeing, Sanyo and Solopower at six patents. Twin Creeks tied with Fu Zhun Precision Industry and Foxconn to round out the top ten in solar energy patents in 2010. Forty five other entities had at least two solar patents in 2010 including Honda, Canon, Miasole, Mario Rabinowitz, GM, and GE.
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Honda continues to lead hybrid/electric vehicle patents overall since 2002 as depicted below, but GM led in 2010 at 22 topping Toyota by one patent and Ford by two. Nissan, Tesla and Hyundai followed with 15, 12 and 9 patents respectively. Tesla’s showing added to its debut of four patents in 2009. Honda and ISE tied for seventh place at six patents while Mitsubishi had five patents in ninth place and Chrysler had three Hybrid/electric vehicle patents in tenth place. Eight other entities had two patents in 2010 in this sector including Kia Motors, Denso and Consolidated Edison as shown in the below figure.
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Also, although not depicted above, Ocean Power Technologies continues to lead in the Tidal sector since 2002 picking up 2 patents in 2010 and has a total of 14 since 2002. Independent Natural Resources and Leonardo Gasendo also each picked up 2 patents while 33 other entities had patents in this area last year. In hydroelectric patents, Steven Deangeles had two patents in 2010 while Verdant Power and 15 other entities had one each.
Three geothermal patents were granted in 2010 to individual inventors. Kalex, LLC continues to lead in geothermal patents (8) overall since 2002 despite not having any patents in 2008-2010. GE and Nuovo Pignone S.p.A. are 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 2010, followed by Dephi. Fifty nine different entities had patents in this area in 2010. Rockwell Automation, Recarbon, Chevron, and Atomic Energy Council-Institute of Nuclear Energy each had two patents while the rest had one.
As depicted below relative to the top university patent owners, we have found that Stanford University (with Honda) topped all others in 2010 with 7 patents while the University of California continues to outpace second place California Institute of Technology dating to 2002. In 2010, Penn State Research (5) followed Stanford and the University of California came in third with four clean energy patents. The University of Illinois had three while the University of Central Florida and Bowling Green had two. The rest of the almost 50 institutions had one patent each.
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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 2002-2010 with 49 percent of the granted U.S. patents as depicted below.
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Patent applicants from Japan (27 percent) and Germany (8 percent) were issued the second and third largest number of U.S. patents since 2002. Canada and South Korea followed as depicted above. As depicted below in the line chart, Japan, Korea and the US appear to be on an upward trajectory with the US taking a huge leap in 2010 after being on a slight uptrend from the time tracking began until 2009. South Korea surpassed Canada in 2008 and Germany in 2010. Germany trends slightly upwardly while the others are holding steady and the number of Canadian clean energy patents slightly decreasing. Looking at 2010 in more detail, Denmark (33) and France (29) fall between Canada (24) and Taiwan (40) as depicted in the chart. China made a showing at 15 clean energy patents which far surpassed its previous high of 6 in 2009. Great Britain followed with 13 patents while Israel and Switzerland had nine clean energy patents in 2010.
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Michigan leads the other U.S. states in the Clean Energy area since 2002 at 23 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 17 percent while New York is at 12 percent based largely on GE’s wind patents and several fuel cell manufacturers. Connecticut has 6 percent with most being fuel cell patents to UTC. Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida and New Jersey follow.
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As depicted in the line chart, California overtook Michigan as the leading US state for clean energy patents in 2010 despite huge increases from both states of over 90 patents each. New York also had a big jump of 40 patents over the prior year. Smaller increases were found for Illinois, Connecticut and Texas while Massachussets declined by two patents. Connecticut and Massachussets tied at 30 in 2010 while Ohio (25) and Penn-sylvania (tying Texas at 24) weren’t far behind. Florida at 23 rounded out the states having over 20 clean energy patents in 2010. Others had big increases including Oregon up 10, Virginia up 13, Delaware up 12, and New Mexico up 14.
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If instead of looking at individual countries versus the U.S. as a whole, we look at the top US states individually (i.e., separately from the US as a whole) and foreign countries in 2010, Japan led the field with 459 patents followed by California at 207, less than half of the Japanese total. Michigan was in third (192) followed by Korea at 162 clean energy patents. Germany was next with 133 in fifth place and New York was in sixth at 100. Denmark had less than half of New York’s total at 40 while Illinois had 37 patents. France came in ninth at 33 while Connecticut and Massachusetts tied for tenth place among clean energy geographic areas at 30 clean energy patents.
As depicted below, Fuel Cell patents since 2002 are dominated by the U.S. and Japan, followed by Germany and Korea. The U.S. leads the world with 47 percent of U.S. patents in fuel cells followed by Japan with 31 percent, Germany with 7 percent and Korea with five percent. Within the U.S., Michigan (30 %), California (12%), New York (11%), and Connecticut (11%) lead.
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In 2010 the U.S. (379) led Japan (341) in US fuel cell patents while Korea followed with less than half of Japan's total at 132 and Germany was further back at 48. Taiwan (20) and France (19) were in fourth and fifth respectively in 2010. Canada had 15 fuel cell patents and Great Britain had 10. In single digits bringing up the rear with a tie for ninth place were Italy and Switzerland at 6. Nine other countries had at least one U.S. Fuel cell patent.
Looking at US states in 2010, Michigan (136) lead with over twice the number of patents as second place California having 59. Connecticut and New York were in the next tier with 22 and 24, respectively. Oregon, (16) and Ohio (12) came in the fifth and sixth spots. Florida, Massachusetts and Illinois tied at 11 U.S. Fuel cell patents in 2010. Penn-sylvania rounded out the top ten with nine fuel cell patents. Twenty other states had at least one fuel cell patent last year.
In wind energy the U.S. is slightly behind the rest of the world in the number of U.S. patents granted since 2002 with 48 percent as depicted above largely on the strength of GE. Germany follows with 20 percent due to Aloys Wobben. Denmark had 8 percent due to Vestas while Japan had six percent. New York leads US states with 38 percent of the US wind patents up four percent since last year thanks to GE. California follows with 14 percent while Texas and Illinois lag at 5 percent.
Looking at foreign grantees of U.S. Wind patents in 2010, Germany with 47 wind patents led Denmark's 28. Japan at 12 had less than half of second place Denmark's total. Spain was in fourth with 7 patents while Israel had four in fifth place. Belize and China tied with three wind patents while two patents were had by Belgium, Canada and Korea. Nine other countries each had one U.S. wind patent in 2010.
In the U.S. New York led cross country rival and runner up California by a factor of four with 61 wind patents versus 15. Illinois and Virginia each had 6 wind patents in 2010 while Pennsylvania and Texas both had five. Florida and Massachusetts were in 7th and 8th place with 4 and 3 wind patents, respectively. At two patents were Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Washington and Arizona. Thirteen other states had one patent each.
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The U.S. percentage of solar patents since 2002 rose to cross fifty percent, rising three percentage points to 52 after its 2010 showing. Japan's share dropped four points to 26 percent while Germany held steady at 6 percent. California's share of the US total since 2002 jumped seven points to 41 while Massachusetts at 8 percent topped Illinois at seven percent and New York at five.
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Looking at the 2010 totals for non-U.S. Holders of U.S. Solar patents, Japan had 50 and Korea 30. Korea and Taiwan were one apart at 17 and 16, respectively. France and China were also one apart at 7 and 6, respectively. Thailand had four U.S. Solar patents while Canada and Switzerland tied at three. Four countries had two U.S. Solar patents while seven other nations had one.
Relative to the U.S. States' showing in 2010, California far outclassed the other states with 99 solar patents to second place Massachusetts' 15. New Mexico, Illinois and Delaware were one apart relative to each other, at 13, 12, and 11 patents, respectively. Colorado (9) and Michigan (7) were in sixth and seventh places. New York and Texas tied with 6 patents in eighth place. Georgia and Pennsylvania tied for tenth with 4 U.S. Solar patents. Seventeen other states had at least one solar patent.
Japan led the other US Hybrid/Electric vehicle patent holders since 2002 with 49 percent of the granted U.S. patents as depicted below. The U.S. follows with 39 percent of the granted U.S. Patents and Korea has 5 percent while Germany has 3 percent. Michigan leads U.S. states since 2002 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. The per-centage totals since 2002 changed little if at all since last year as depicted.
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Looking at granted US Hybrid/Electric vehicle patent in 2010 only, Japan led the non-U.S. Patents holders by a wide margin with 56 patents to 13 for Korea. China and France each had two patents while German and Australia had only one. Thus, in 2010 there were only 7 countries, including the U.S. which were granted U.S. Patents in the Hybrid/ Electric vehicle sector.
Relative to the U.S. States, Michigan not surprisingly given its status as the home state of the American automobile industry led all others in Hybrid/Electric vehicle patents almost doubling that of California its nearest competitor with a 45 to 24 spread. Illinois, New York and Ohio all had four patents while Virginia and Wisconsin had two patents in this sector. Seven other states had one patent in the Hybrid/Electric vehicle space.
The CEPGI is updated quarterly and is occasionally supplemented with related articles posted on www.cleanenergypa tentgrowthindex.com or http://www.cepgi.com/
Please contact us at info@cleanenergy patentgrowthindex.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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