Ternary material patent technology layout has hidden trouble

In the hot industry trend of ternary lithium battery, especially high nickel ternary, many domestic anode material enterprises are faced with huge foreign patent costs in the development. So, what is the status quo of domestic lithium battery ternary material patent technology layout?

Core patents to 'overtake on a curve'

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

For example, on November 15, 2005, 3M obtained the American patent US6964828B2 and its related patent CN100403585C, which mainly limited the content of Ni in NiCoMn and became the basic core patent of ternary materials, and has been restricting the development of ternary materials in China's lithium battery industry.

Secondly, the patents surrounding the modification of ternary materials are mainly used to improve the electrochemical properties, but the problems of safety and cost have not been effectively broken through. In contrast to the rapid growth of invention patents for improving electrochemical properties, the growth of applications for ternary materials in terms of safety and cost reduction is relatively slow. This also shows that the safety and cost of ternary materials have not been effectively broken through in the case of significantly increased research and development investment and battery safety is very important.

With a domestic institute of invention patent "titanium sol coating preparation method of modified ternary cathode material" as an example, the invention patent by optimizing the coating process on the ternary cathode material was modified, which can effectively improve the material for the first time the coulomb efficiency and discharge specific capacity, but the material cycle of other aspects, such as no obvious improvement in performance. Moreover, the coating process also needs to use a large amount of alcohol, which requires higher requirements for process equipment and workshop conditions (explosion proof workshop), and the recovery and utilization of alcohol also need to increase the processing cost.

Based on the above analysis, battery China believes that there are two points that domestic anode material enterprises need to focus on: first, the domestic patent application of ternary materials is relatively scattered, especially leading enterprises involved in less, the overall research atmosphere is not strong, domestic enterprises need to pay attention to the research and development of anode materials and the protection of intellectual property rights; Second, the safety and cost of ternary materials have a large space for development. The layout of foreign applicants is not perfect, if domestic enterprises can increase research and development investment in these aspects, as soon as possible to master the core patents, it is possible to achieve the "curve overtaking" in the field of ternary materials.

Licensing may be a last resort

The industry consensus is that in addition to attaching great importance to independent research and development and protection of intellectual property rights, domestic anode material enterprises should also pay attention to patent licensing between enterprises, which is also a choice for sustainable development of the industry. Battery China network found that the recent positive electrode material enterprises patent layout is as follows:

In January 2018 and November 2017, basf announced that it had granted sublicenses to ruixiang xincai and Peking University for the related patents of NCM anode materials. Under the license, the two companies can manufacture, use, sell, promise to sell, distribute and import nickel-cobalt-manganese anode materials in the U.S. market.

On January 29, dow chemical signed a technical license agreement with Shanghai huayi (group) co., LTD. Dow non-exclusively authorizes the core technology of anode materials for two kinds of lithium ion batteries: lithium iron manganese phosphate (LMFP) and lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC).

According to the above licensing information, as domestic power battery and ternary material enterprises accelerate their entry into the international market, some domestic ternary material enterprises have to strengthen their patent layout to obtain relevant operational freedom and cooperate with battery customers to cope with the stringent qualification examination abroad.

Tang shunguo, chairman and general manager of ruixiang xincai, said, "we highly respect intellectual property rights and attach great importance to the sublicense of nickel-cobalt-manganese anode materials, which is of strategic significance to us and our downstream customers."

But in fact, the domestic ternary material enterprise buys the patent very few. There are two main reasons: first, the high cost of patent purchase, small and medium-sized enterprises can hardly afford; Second, the domestic policy is relatively loose, especially the relevant legal system is not perfect, some enterprises with a fluke.

Industry insiders believe that patent licensing and patent disputes between domestic and foreign enterprises will become more and more common. Therefore, no matter domestic enterprises adopt patent licensing or take a detour, accelerating patent layout is the necessary guarantee for the sustainable development of the industry.

Life-and-death revelation for lithium iron phosphate

There is no doubt that domestic ternary material enterprises sweep away the risk of patent infringement litigation, in order to become bigger and stronger in the global scope.

Experience, if don't forget the former things, people familiar with the domestic lithium battery industry development must have remember the lithium iron phosphate battery industry in 2012's "invalid patents" hydropower company in Quebec, Canada, and other three claims to have the lithium iron phosphate battery technology patent, sued China patent reexamination board of the lithium iron phosphate battery patents invalid ruled invalid.

It is understood that the Canadian company's patent application covers almost all aspects of the current production technology of lithium iron phosphate battery. If go according to this patent, domestic major battery manufacturer belongs to tort. And if the foreign side wins, it means that Chinese battery manufacturers will have to pay patent fees to the patent holder if they produce lithium iron phosphate batteries in the future. The foreigners charge a hefty fee: $10m for a one-time patent entry fee or $2,500 for a tonne of lithium iron phosphate. Fortunately, the patent lawsuit, which is crucial to the development of China's lithium iron phosphate battery industry and new energy vehicle industry, ended in failure.

However, there are many experiences and lessons in this lawsuit, which are worth thinking about by domestic lithium battery colleagues. In the current hot situation of the development of new energy vehicles, the domestic lithium battery industry ranked top enterprises, especially the leading enterprises that are willing to participate in the international market competition, should take this as a reference, more long-term and strategic layout of the three-material core patented technology.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.