Domestic lithium electricity alert to repeat the mistakes of ZTE core patent technology

When it comes to the international structure of the lithium-ion battery industry, our usual impression is that the top three East Asian countries, China, Japan and South Korea, occupy the first tier of lithium-ion batteries, and domestic CATL, BYD and other giants have rapidly emerged. In particular, CATL shipped the world's largest number of power batteries in 2017. Many people think that China's lithium ion battery industry is about to lead the world. No one will think that we need to see the face of Americans in the lithium ion battery industry. But we have neglected a very important problem-the lack of core patent technology for ternary materials.

The lesson of the past

When it comes to core proprietary technologies, we have not learned much from the past. There is a bitter lesson from ZTE, and there is a technical patent crisis for lithium iron phosphate batteries in previous years. People familiar with the development of the domestic lithium battery industry may still remember the "patent invalidation case" of lithium iron phosphate batteries in 2012. At that time, three companies, such as Quebec Hydro, Canada, claimed to have a patent 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 judged by this patent, most battery manufacturers in China are infringing. Moreover, if the foreign party wins the case, it means that if domestic battery manufacturers produce lithium iron phosphate batteries in the future, they need to pay patent fees to patent holders. At that time, the foreign side also had a very high asking price: a one-time payment of 10 million U.S. dollars for patent entry fees or 2,500 U.S. dollars per ton of lithium iron phosphate.

Fortunately, this patent lawsuit, which is crucial to the development of China's iron phosphate battery industry and the new energy automotive industry, has failed. Nevertheless, any export of lithium iron phosphate is now subject to a high royalty. Many experiences and lessons in this lawsuit 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 lay out the core patent technology of three-yuan materials in a more long-term and strategic manner.

Competitive disadvantage

Compared with the development trend of global ternary materials, domestic patent applications started late. Related patent applications only appeared in 1996, and the development was relatively slow during the period from 1996 to 2008. Compared with the global patent application trend, the development is relatively lagging behind.

From the overall point of view, the domestic three-yuan material application is relatively scattered, the industry concentration is poor, and it has not been sufficiently developed. In particular, the domestic lithium-electric leading enterprises have less involvement and the overall research atmosphere is not strong.

Compared with Japanese and Korean companies, domestic companies BYD only had patent applications for ternary materials in 2002. Coger and Jiangnan University began to appear patents on ternary materials after 2010, starting nearly 10 years later than Japanese and Korean companies. Therefore, Domestic companies do not master core patents on ternary materials, and due to the early layout of important foreign applicants such as Japanese and Korean companies and US 3M companies, and at the same time master core patents, domestic applicants 'patent applications on ternary materials are basically peripheral applications. And the method of patent application is too many, resulting in the domestic applicant's competitive strength on the ternary material is not strong.

Lack of Basic Core Patent Technology

The technical development route of ternary materials in the main preparation methods and modification methods is roughly as follows: The earliest ternary materials were NiCoAl ternary materials applied by Japan Battery Co., Ltd. on September 9, 1997, which were prepared by co-precipitation method. Later, on November 5, 1999, Japan Central Electric Industry Co., Ltd. applied for co-precipitation to prepare cationic doped NiCoMn ternary materials.

In 2001, the American company IIAON Technology applied for a patent for the preparation of NiCoMn ternary materials using the solid-phase method on September 14, 2000, which extended the method of preparing ternary materials from the co-precipitation method to the solid-phase method. Subsequently, patent applications for atom-doped modified ternary materials began to appear, such as the F atom doped modification applied on December 11, 2000, after which atomic doped also developed rapidly and became an important means of modifying ternary materials.

On November 15, 2005, 3M Innovation Co., Ltd. obtained the U.S. patent US6964828B2 and its family patent CN100403585C for NiCoMn ternary materials authorized on April 27, 2001, which mainly limited the content of Ni in NiCoMn., thus significantly improving the performance of ternary materials, It has become the basic core patent of ternary materials, which has restricted the development of ternary materials in the lithium industry in China. It can be seen that the basic patent technology of ternary materials is still in the hands of foreign applicants.

Strategic recommendations for patent layout

Compared with other lithium-electric powers such as Japan and Korea, China is still at a disadvantage in the competition of core technology, although the number of patent applications has gradually outstripped that of other countries. Most of the core patent technologies of lithium-ion battery basic materials are controlled by foreign giants. Through the statistics of patent application for ternary materials, it is found that there is still great room for development in terms of the safety and cost of ternary materials. We can increase research and development investment in these areas in order to be able to master the relevant core patents.

From the spontaneous combustion of earlier Tesla pure electric vehicles to the subsequent explosion of Samsung Note7 mobile phones, the safety of lithium batteries that are highly related to such incidents has received increasing attention. From the statistics of patents, it can be seen that there are fewer applications for security patents for ternary materials. In particular, the distribution of security patents around ternary materials by key foreign applicants has not yet formed a perfect system. Domestic applicants can take ternary material safety as the focus of research. direction.

At the same time, it can be arranged in some areas that are less concerned about abroad. At present, the market of new energy vehicles is growing rapidly, and both domestic and foreign are facing the practical problems of power battery recycling, especially the cost of ternary materials can be reduced by recovering cobalt from scarce resources. From the statistics of patents, it can also be seen that there are very few patent applications involving the reduction of the cost of ternary materials, and there are currently few companies that specialize in battery recovery, and related technologies are very lacking.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.