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 2011 were at an all time high of 2331, jumping 450 patents, or 24 percent, over 2010, which is the second largest year-to-year jump, lagging only the previous year-to-year jump of 756 patents.
As depicted in the below breakdown of the CEPGI by its sub-components, patents in wind energy were up over 85 percent followed by solar patents at almost 50 percent. Although being the largest component of the CEPGI by far, fuel cells in 2011 were actually down 44 patents. Hybrid/electric vehicle patents were up 20 percent over 2010. Tidal energy and biomass/biofuel energy patents were up 50 and 65 percent, respectively. Geothermal patents were up by two patents while hydroelectric patents were the only sector besides fuel cells that decreased, at 4 fewer patents than 2010.
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The fuel cell sector was again the big winner among the components of the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index, although at a smaller margin this year, with 952 patents beating out solar patents (541) by over 400 patents. Solar, wind and hybrid/electric vehicle patents reached new highs in 2011 despite losing out to Fuel Cells in the patent race. Solar patents again topped wind patents in 2011, by 86 patents, despite wind patents almost doubling from 245 patents in 2010 to 455 patents last year. Solar’s gain in 2011 was also impressive, jumping nearly 200 patents in one year. Patents in hybrid/electric vehicles jumped 35 in 2011 to 203 patents. The gap between solar and wind on one hand and hybrid/electric on the other has grown substantially in the last three years resulting in a race between solar and wind; bounded by fuel cells at the top and hybrid/electric below, followed by the remaining contenders far, far below. Biomass patents led the lower tier at 104 patents followed by tidal energy patents at 60. Hydroelectric had 15 patents and geothermal 7.
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 four years:
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Over 800 entities contributed to the record total of clean energy patents in 2011. The top clean energy patent holders in 2011 (2011 totals indicated in purple) were more diverse than last year with GE taking the top spot from GM which had snatched the leader's spot from Honda last year. Although less dominated by automobile companies than last year, half of the top 10 in 2011 still were auto companies. Samsung stayed in second place with 128 patents to GE's 184. GE's patents were primarily in wind with contributions from both solar and hybrid/electric vehicles while Samsung's patents were mostly in the fuel cell area. GM fell from first to third place, while Toyota (114) again took fourth. Honda fell further from its first place finish in 2009 down to fifth place in 2011 with 79 patents although it is interesting to note that in 2009 Honda took the leading spot with only 70 patents. Wind power manufacturer Vestas had 59 patents in 2011 and was followed by Mitsubishi (39), due mostly to its wind patents with smaller contributions by solar and hydroelectric vehicle patents. Nissan had 35 patents, primarily in fuel cells. Panasonic followed with 34 patents in ninth place mostly due to its fuel cell work while Siemens (29) rounded out the top 10 in 2011 largely based on its wind patents.
As is evident from the chart above, Honda continues to lead in overall clean energy patents granted since 2002 despite dropping to fifth place for 2011 alone. GM and GE follow with GM having more clean energy patents than any other over the last two years followed closely by GE. Five of the top ten overall clean energy patent holders are auto manufacturers with the other five including an assortment of wind, solar and fuel cell makers. Canon snuck back into the top ten overall with a jump in solar patents in 2011 while GE had new patents in solar and wind. Ballard was able to hang on in the top ten with no additional contribution from 2011. Samsung's impressive numbers in 2011 moved it overall from 8th place up to fifth.
We will now look in more detail at each of the CEPGI’s major components along with the top patent owners and geographical areas.
As depicted below in the Fuel Cell patent owner breakdown, GM topped Honda to take the all time leader crown but lagged Samsung in 2011 by 115 to 104 fuel cell patents while Honda took fourth place in 2011. GM thus lost the annual crown to last year’s runner up, Samsung, by 11 patents. Toyota increased from 57 to 78 fuel cell patents in 2011 but still fell to third place in 2011 and fourth overall. Honda fell a place to fourth in 2011 with 69 patents while being the runner up in all time fuel cell patents. Panasonic had two fewer patents than 2010 at 32 patents. Nissan came in sixth both in 2011 and overall fuel cell patents. Canon jumped six patents over its 2010 totals to arrive in the top ten fuel cell patents for the first time at 18 patents barely edging UTC by one patent. Bloom Energy had another strong showing in 2011 with 15 patents while Hyundai rounded out the top ten with 13 fuel cell patents in 2011. Five of the top ten fuel cell patent grantees were automobile entities compared to six from 2010. Looking at the overall Fuel Cell chart below, Ballard, Plug Power and Delphi maintained their spots in the overall top ten despite lagging the leaders in 2011.
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2011 wind patent leader GE dominated the 2011 rankings along with the overall year to date wind numbers. GE had over 2 1/2 times the wind patents (152) as its nearest 2011 rival Vestas (59) which also came in third overall as depicted above and had more than doubled its own totals from the previous year. GE also had one-third of all 2011 wind patents. Siemens shot to third place in the annual rankings by jumping from 2 to 20 wind patents in a year barely edging out Mitsubishi at 19. Nordex (10) dropped 6 patents but placed fifth in 2011 and is fourth overall since 2002. Gamesa tied Nordex for fifth place in the annual race and had its best year ever at 10 patents and in ninth place overall. Longtime high finisher Aloys Wobben (9), the owner of Enercon GmbH of Germany, fell from third to seventh place in the annual rankings and remained in second place overall. Repower and FloDesign Wind Turbine Corp. each had 5 wind patents tied for eighth place with Repower being in seventh overall. LM Glasfiber and Texas-based wind energy consultant and engineer, Michael Zuteck tied at 4 patents, rounded out the top ten in the annual rankings and LM Glasfiber took eighth place overall as depicted. Other grantees of wind patents in 2011 included Modular Wind Energy, Inc., Genedics, and IHC Engineering with three wind patents while about eight entities had two patents and over one hundred entities had one wind patent.
The 2011 race for solar patents illustrates a much more diverse set of patent holders relative to wind patents. As indicated above, GE led all others in wind patents in 2011 with 152 patents. In contrast, GE also led solar patent grantees last year but with only 14 patents despite 90 more solar patents being granted than wind patents. About 300 different entities received solar patents in 2011 compared to only around half that number receiving wind patents.
GE jumped from 2 to 14 solar patents to take the annual solar patent crown from Applied Materials which dropped to a three way tie for second place in 2011. Applied Materials moved up three places to fifth place in the cumulative rankings since 2002. GE meanwhile made the top ten for cumulative solar patents for the first time as depicted. Dupont and Samsung were the other runner ups with 13 patents each in 2011 with Dupont moving up one place relative to 2010 while Samsung jumped 6 patents relative to the prior year. Samsung and Dupont also moved up to eighth and ninth place, respectively, in the overall rankings since 2002.
Sanyo was in third place (6th overall) with 11 solar patents in 2011 while Miasole made the annual top ten for the first time with nine solar patents trailing Sanyo. Sunpower and Atomic Energy Council-Institute of Nuclear Energy each had eight solar patents with Sunpower remaining in fourth cumulatively as depicted below. Konarka again made the annual top ten tying with LG at 7 patents. Four others rounded out the annual top ten including: Boeing, Skyline, SolFocus, and Schott.
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In hybrid/electric vehicle patents in 2011, Toyota took the lead from last year's winner GM with 36 patents-15 more than the Detroit automaker. Ford remained in third in place in 2011 down 4 from the prior year at 16 patents. Nissan again placed fourth in 2011 with 13 patents while Hyundai (11) jumped a place into fifth. Honda (9) also moved up a place in 2011 relative to the year before, topping seventh place finishers Tesla and GE which continued its clean energy surge adding 7 hybrid/electric vehicle patents. The top ten was rounded out by a four way tie by Asin, Denso, Kia and Coulomb with 6 patents each.
As is evident from the chart, Honda continues to lead overall since 2002 with all the other top ten hybrid/electric vehicle patent owner holding their relative position except for Telsa and Hitachi swapping places.
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Also, although not depicted above, Ocean Power Technologies continues to lead in the Tidal sector since 2002 picking up 4 patents in 2011 and has a total of 18 since 2002. Gerald Rourke was the runner up in 2011 with three patents in this area. Neptune Wave power had two patents and nearly 50 other different entities had patents in this area last year. In hydroelectric patents, 15 assignees, including GE had one patent each.
Two geothermal patents were granted in 2011 to Kimberly Peacock while Mine-RG, Ormat Technologies, Inc., Ryland Wiggs, Echogen Power Systems, and Ivan Kocis et al., each received one patent. Kalex, LLC continues to lead in geothermal patents (8) overall since 2002 despite not having any patents in 2008-2011. GE, Ormat and Nuovo Pignone S.p.A. are the next closest at 3 total geothermal patents since 2002.
In the biofuel/biomass area, Chevron and Virent led in 2011 with five patents followed by at least nine other assignees with two patents. Also, Rockwell automation, Recarbon Corp, Michigan State University and the Alliance for Sustainable energy all had one patent in 2011. Eighty eight different entities had patents in this area in 2011 - all but 11 being granted only one patent this year. Cumulatively since 2002, Chevron overtook The Research Foundation of State University of New York now tied with Virent Energy with both edging Delphi by one patent.
In 2011 the University of California and Penn State Research led all challengers with 4 patents while a four way tie for second occurred at 3 patents between the University of Toledo, Cleveland State University, Georgia Tech and Nat Sing Hua University of Taiwan.
Cumulatively, the top 11 Universities had the same players other than newcomer Georgia Tech with the top three depicted remaining in their respective slots. The Research Foundation of State University of New York did not have any clean energy patents in 2011 and dropped to fifth place passed by the University of Central Florida. Penn State moved up 5 spots to tie The Research Foundation of State University of New York and the University of Pennsylvania also jumped three spots to add to the gains for the Keystone state.
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Turning to the geographical extent of U.S. clean energy patents, U.S. patent owners 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. Patent applicants from Japan (26 percent) and Germany (7 percent) were issued the second and third largest number of U.S. patents since 2002. South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, and Denmark followed as depicted.
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Also, in 2011 the U.S. was edged out by the combined total of all other countries receiving clean energy patents in the United States by a margin 1182 to 1149. As depicted below in the line chart, Japan, Korea and the U.S. appear to be on an upward trajectory with the U.S. taking a huge leap in 2010 and continuing a sharp upward direction in 2011 while Japan leveled off slightly. Japan led Korea by a huge margin of 504 to 190 in 2011 while Germany trailed at 129 granted clean energy patents dropping four patents relative to the previous year. South Korea continued its upward trajectory after surpassing Canada in 2008 and Germany in 2010. Taiwan (up 35) and Denmark (up 34) were in fourth and fifth among non-U.S. clean energy patent holders with 75 and 67 patents, respectively. France followed with 39 patents while Canada had 37. Great Britain and Spain rounded out the top ten non-U.S. holders of U.S. clean energy patents in 2011 with 26 and 18 patents respectively.
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Michigan leads the U.S. states in the Clean Energy area since 2002 at 22 percent of the U.S. clean energy patents largely based on the fuel cell and hybrid electric vehicle activities of U.S. car manufacturers- falling one percent compared to its share in 2010. California rose to 18 percent while New York is up two percent to 14 percent based largely on GE’s big jump in 2011. Connecticut has 6 percent with most of those being fuel cell patents to UTC. Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida and New Jersey follow.
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Looking at 2011 and the line chart below, California continued its sharp rise with 261 clean energy patents, up 54, to take the States' Clean Energy Patent Crown while New York (218) overtook Michigan (186) and moved into second place on the strength of GE’s contribution with an increase of 118 patents over last year while Michigan fell six. At about one third the number of patents Massachusetts (up 17) was in fourth place followed by Connecticut (42), up 12. Texas had 30 patents followed by Illinois (28), Florida (27), New Jersey (27) and Ohio (26).
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If instead of looking at individual countries versus the U.S. as a whole, we look at the top U.S. states individually (i.e., separately from the U.S. as a whole) and foreign countries in 2011, Japan led the field with 504 patents followed by California at 261, slightly more than half of the Japanese total. New York was in third (218) followed by Korea at 190 clean energy patents. Michigan was next with 186 in fifth place and Germany was in sixth at 129. Taiwan and Denmark followed at 75 and 67 clean energy patents, respectively. Connecticut and Massachusetts came in ninth and tenth place among clean energy geographic areas at 47 and 42 clean energy patents, respectively.
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 46 percent of U.S. patents in fuel cells followed by Japan with 31 percent, while Germany and Korea both hold 7 percent. Within the U.S., Michigan (30 %), California (12%), Connecticut (11%), and New York (10%) lead.
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In 2011 the U.S. (359) dropped twenty patents relative to the year before but led Japan (320) in U.S. fuel cell patents while Korea followed with less than half of Japan's total at a still formidable 143 and Germany had less than a quarter of that at 34 fuel cell patents. France (23) and Taiwan (22) swapped fourth and fifth places relative to 2010. Canada had 16 fuel cell patents and Great Britain had 12. In single digits bringing up the rear was Italy at 6. Switzerland had 3 patents while Israel, China, Belgium and Australia each had two and several others had one U.S. fuel cell patent.
Looking at U.S. states in 2011, Michigan (124) dropped 12 relative to last year, but leads with over twice the number of patents as second place California with 47, also falling 12 relative to 2010. Connecticut and New York were in the next tier with 32 (up 8) and 21, respectively. Massachusetts (16), Oregon, (15) and New Jersey (13) came in the fifth through seventh spots. Florida (10), Ohio (9), Washington D.C. (8) and Pennsylvania (7) followed. Twenty one other states had at least one fuel cell patent last year
In wind energy the U.S. is ahead of the rest of the world in the number of U.S. patents granted since 2002 with 51 percent, up three percent, as depicted below largely on the strength of GE’s wind patents. Germany follows with 17 percent due to Aloys Wobben. Denmark had 10 percent due to Vestas while Japan had six percent. New York leads U.S. states with 45 percent of the U.S. wind patents up seven percent since last year, and four more the year before, thanks to GE. California follows with 12 percent while Texas and Massachusetts lag at 5 and percent, respectively.
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Looking at foreign grantees of U.S. Wind patents in 2011, Denmark (63) took the crown from Germany (53) by 10 patents. Japan jumped 17 patents to 29 while Spain (15) jumped 8 to a fourth place finish. Taiwan and Canada also had wind patents granted in 2011 with 10 and 7, respectively. Great Britain had 5. Israel and China had two U.S. wind patents while eight other countries each had one U.S. wind patent in 2011.
In the U.S., New York (153) jumped 92 wind patents to dominate California's 25. Massachusetts jumped 9 patents to arrive at 12 and third place. Texas also tied for third place with 12 wind patents topping Michigan and Ohio's 5 patents each. Four wind energy patents were awarded to each of Colorado, Minnesota and Virginia. Seventeen other states had at least one patents each.
The U.S. percentage of solar patents since 2002 rose to 53 percent, up one percent over last year. Japan's share dropped four points to 22 percent, after dropping four last year, while Germany held steady at 6 percent. California's share of the U.S. total since 2002 held at 41 percent while Massachusetts fell two points to 6 percent tying Illinois. New York held at five percent.
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Looking at the 2011 totals for non-U.S. Holders of U.S. Solar patents, Japan led with 76, up 26, followed by Taiwan (41) which leapfrogged last year's second place winner Korea (32). Germany had two less solar patents than Korea. At a significantly lower level of patents, Canada had 8, France 7, Switzerland 5, Italy 5, and Australia 5, while Sweden, Israel, and China had 4 U.S. solar patents each. Three countries had two U.S. Solar patents while eight other nations had one.
Relative to the U.S. States' showing in 2011, California again dominated the other states with 144 solar patents, adding 45 over the last year and quadrupling its nearest rival. New York topped previous second place finisher Massachusetts 23 to 13. Delaware (15) also passed Massachusetts which tied Michigan at 13 U.S. solar energy patents. Illinois was the sixth spot with 12 patents while Colorado followed with 9, both of which repeated their last year's showing. Rounding out the top 10, Pennsylvania had 8 solar patents, Washington 7 and Florida 7. Nineteen other states had at least one solar patent.
Japan led the other U.S. Hybrid/Electric vehicle patent holders since 2002 with 45 percent of the granted U.S. patents while dropping four points from last year's results, as depicted below. The U.S. follows with 42 percent of the granted U.S. Patents since 2002, up 3 percent. Korea repeated with 5 percent while Germany has 3 percent. Michigan leads U.S. states since 2002 with an overwhelming 60 percent of the U.S. share of the granted U.S. patents in this area despite dropping 7 percentage points. California increased 6 points to 13 while Ohio and New York have 4 percent, respectively. Colorado, Illinois and Florida each have three percent or less.
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Looking at granted U.S. Hybrid/Electric vehicle patents in 2011 only, Japan led the non-U.S. Patents holders by a wide margin gaining 26 patents to arrive at 82, Korea rose one over 2010 with 14. Germany was up seven to a total of 8 while Denmark rose two to 4. Switzerland tied Denmark for 4 while France was in sixth place having 3 granted U.S. Hybrid/Electric vehicle patents. One patent was also granted to entities in the Netherlands and Great Britain.
Relative to the U.S. States, Michigan not surprisingly led all other states in Hybrid/Electric vehicle patents in 2011 almost doubling that of its nearest competitor California with a 39 to 20 spread. New York had 9 patents in this area while Illinois had 6. Massachusetts and Kentucky also had two patents while eight 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.cleanenergypatentgro wthindex.com or http://www.cepgi.com/
Please contact us at info@cleanenergypatentg rowthindex.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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