Domestic lithium battery ternary material patent technology layout status

A few days ago, at the 6th meeting of the sixth session of the China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, Secretary-General Liuyanlong highlighted the issue of patent technology layout for lithium battery ternary materials. He pointed out that in the three lithium battery, especially high nickel three hot industry trend, many domestic positive material enterprises are facing huge foreign patent costs in the development. In this regard, the Association will organize a symposium in the near future to respond to reduce cost pressures in enterprise development.

So, what is the current situation of patent technology layout of lithium battery ternary material?

Core patent to "curve overtaking"

Some professionals have conducted statistics on domestic and foreign patents in the field of ternary materials. The results show that: first, the domestic development of ternary materials started late, the lack of basic and core patents, and there is still a big gap with Japanese and Korean companies, the United States 3M company and so on.

For example, on November 15, 2005, 3M Company obtained the U.S. patent US69644828B2 and its family patent CN100403585C for NiCoMn ternary materials, which mainly limited the content of Ni in NiCoMn and became the basic core patent for ternary materials., So far, it has restricted the development of three-yuan materials in the lithium electric industry in China.

Secondly, patents around the modification of ternary materials are mainly to improve electrochemical performance, but the safety and cost problems have not been effectively broken through. In contrast with the rapid growth of invention patents for improving electrochemical performance, the number of applications for safety and cost reduction of ternary materials has grown relatively slowly. This also shows that the safety and cost of ternary materials have not been effectively broken through when the research and development investment has increased significantly and the battery safety is very important.

Taking the invention patent of a domestic research institute, "Preparation Method of Ti Sol-coated modified triplet cathode materials" as an example, the invention patent can effectively improve the first Coulomb efficiency of the material by optimizing the coating process to modify the trivariate cathode materials. And discharge capacity, However, there is no significant improvement in other aspects such as the cyclic properties of materials. In addition, the coating process also uses a lot of alcohol, and the requirements for process equipment and workshop conditions(explosion-proof workshops) are high. The recycling of alcohol also requires additional treatment costs.

Based on the above analysis, Battery China Network believes that there are two points that need to be focused on by domestic positive materials companies: First, domestic three-yuan materials patent applications are relatively scattered, especially if leading companies are involved in less, and the overall research atmosphere is not strong. Domestic enterprises need to pay attention to the research and development of positive materials and the protection of intellectual property rights; Second, the safety of ternary materials, cost problems, etc. have a large space for development. The layout of foreign applicants is not perfect. If domestic companies can increase research and development investment in these areas and master core patents as soon as possible, it is possible to achieve "curve overtaking" in the field of ternary materials.

Patent licensing or desperate.

In the industry consensus, in addition to the domestic positive material enterprises should attach great importance to the protection of independent R&D and intellectual property rights, patent licensing among enterprises is also an option for the sustainable development of the industry. Battery China Network found that the recent patent layout of positive material companies is as follows:

In January 2018 and November 2017, Ruixiang announced the granting of a sub-license for the patents related to the nickel cobalt manganese(NCM) positive materials at the Argonne National Laboratory and Peking University. After authorization, the two companies can manufacture, use, sell, promise to sell, distribute and import nickel cobalt manganese positive electrode materials in the United States market.

On January 29, Dow Chemical Company and Shanghai Huayi(Group) Company signed a technology license agreement, and Dow's non-exclusive authorization of the core materials of two lithium ion batteries: lithium ferromanganese phosphate(LMFP) and lithium Nickel manganese cobalt oxide(NMC).

Judging from the above licensing information, with the acceleration of domestic power batteries and ternary materials companies entering the international market, some domestic ternary materials companies have to strengthen the distribution of patents to obtain the relevant operating freedom, in line with the battery customers to deal with the stringent foreign qualification examination.

Ruixiang's chairman and general manager, Tangshunguo, said: "We highly respect intellectual property rights and attach importance to the patent licensing of nickel, cobalt, manganese, and positive materials. This sub-license has strategic significance for us and our downstream customers. "

In fact, there are very few patents purchased by domestic ternary materials companies. There are two main reasons: First, the purchase cost of patents is high, and SMEs are almost unable to afford it; Second, the domestic policy is relatively loose, especially the related legal system is not perfect, some enterprises are lucky.

Industry insiders believe that patent licensing and patent disputes between domestic and foreign companies will become more and more common. Therefore, regardless of whether domestic companies adopt patent licensing or adopt a detour, accelerating the distribution of patents is a necessary guarantee for the continuous development of the industry.

lithium iron phosphate revelation of life and death

There is no doubt, domestic three-yuan material enterprises to eliminate the risk of patent infringement litigation, in order to do a global scale.

Those who are familiar with the development of the domestic lithium battery industry must remember the 2012 "patent invalidation case" of the lithium iron phosphate battery industry -- three companies such as Quebec Hydro Corporation in Canada claim to have patents for lithium iron phosphate battery technology. To sue the China Patent Reexamination Board for invalidation of its patent technology for lithium iron phosphate batteries.

It is understood that the Canadian company's patent application covers almost all of the current technology for the production of lithium iron phosphate batteries. If we follow this patent, most of the domestic battery manufacturers are infringing. Moreover, if the foreign party wins the case, it means that if the Chinese battery manufacturer produces lithium iron phosphate batteries in the future, it will need to pay the patent fee to the patent holder. The foreign side is also asking for a high price: a one-time $10 million patent entry fee or $2,500 per ton of lithium iron phosphate. Fortunately, this patent lawsuit that is crucial to the development of China's iron phosphate battery industry and the new energy automotive industry has failed.

However, many experiences and lessons in this lawsuit case are worth thinking about in the domestic lithium industry. Under the current hot development situation of new energy vehicles, the top enterprises in the domestic lithium electricity industry, especially the leading enterprises that are interested in participating in the international market competition, should take this as a guide and more strategically deploy the core patent technology of ternary materials in the longer term.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.