This is a patent app presented by a Chinese company in multiple countries to protect its new EV battery design.
One red rectangle with a patent drawing.
In 2000, Chinese applicants made 18 clean patents that analysts said was internationally competitive.
18 red rectangles.
In 2022, Chinese applicants presented more than 5,000.
Network 5,206 Red Red.
For two decades, China jumped before other countries, as it has created an innovative design of the future power mix: solar energy, wind, batteries and electric cars.
A line that extends over the years from 2000 to 2022, with lines in different colors that show trends in high -quality annual patent files from China, Japan, Europe, Korea and the United States.
For years, accused of copying other countries ’technologies, China is now dominating the renewed energy scene not only in terms of patent files and search papers, But what analysts say are the main contributions that will help keep the world away from fossil fuels.
Where high -quality patents arise
China leads batteries and solar energy, while Europe still dominates wind and smart networks
“It might seem simplified, but the final indicator of patent quality is the amount of money spent by the company or the institution to protect its application, including by providing it in many countries,” said Yan Menir, chief economist at the European Patent Office, who was sharing the strongest data available in competitive patent trends with the New York Times. “Based on this, we can see how China has moved from being imitated to an innovator.”
European Patent Office data is studying any application that has been provided in two or more high quality countries, based on the assumption that companies have passed the problem and expenses of applying for a patent in more than one market with the intention of protecting their invention across the border. Other patents prevent other than making, using or selling innovation without permission for a specific period of time.
With this measure, China has applied for more than twice the number of high -quality clean energy patents such as the United States in 2022, the last year of full data. While Chinese applicants continue to provide a large number of low -quality patents that may be duplicated or meaninglessly different from the current inventions, an increasing rate of higher quality.
This trend was driven by the strategic policies of Beijing in addition to the maturity of the academic research environment in China.
“It is the opposite of an accident. Global research database On technologies that are necessary for economic and military security of nations, including clean energy.
Last summer, the leaders of the Communist Party of China Those who gathered To plan for the future of the country I have made more attention to scientific training and education more than any other policy except for measures to strengthen the party itself.
In mid -2015, the Chinese government announced a program entitled “Made In China 2025.” In 10 strategic industries, companies will provide low -use loans from state -owned investment funds and development banks, and help in obtaining foreign competitors and generous benefits for scientific research. At the time, the declared goal was that Chinese companies would control 80 percent of the local markets of these industries by 2025.
Dr. Wong Lyong and other analysts said this effort has succeeded to a large extent.
Clean Chinese technology companies have dominated the control of both local and international markets. While Western countries like the United States and Australia are now pioneering in mature technologies such as solar panels, batteries and super condensions (which resemble batteries, only smaller, and provide rapid energy bursts), China now depends on these designs and create new versions.
“The huge size of Chinese investment was much larger than in the West,” said Dr. Wong Lyong. “This means that they can build industries from A to Z, along the road through the supply chain.”
Reflection on the dominance of clean energy research
China is advancing in the very cited publications in the global magazines that the pendant
Analysts said the matter was not related to money. The Chinese government encouraged the local competition the window that some economists likened “Economic Darwinism”.
Sam Adham, head of the Cru Group battery material, a market analysis company, described a typical scenario: First, the flood of subsidies in a specific industry considered by the government a strategy. Companies accumulate in providing dozens or even hundreds of patents along the way. In the final stage, Mr. Adah said that the government attracts the least competitive subsidies and companies that are “executed”, while “the remaining companies appear stronger and go abroad and take the market share there.”
Take, for example, batteries for electric cars. While the original breakthroughs in the production of lithium -ion batteries were conducted in the United States three decades ago, more research received little government support there. Meanwhile, Chinese companies grabbed the lot.
BYD, based in Shenzhen, recently exceeded Tesla as the world’s largest electric car factory, and Catl, a Chinese competitor based in Ningdy, Most batteries are produced. Both BYD and Catl relied on lithium -ion batteries that use the relatively incomplete iron and phosphate, along with lithium, instead of nickel and cobalt, which Western producers prefer. Through patented breakthroughs, Chinese companies have made their batteries lighter, longer, faster to charge and cheaper for their production.
These improvements make electric cars safer and more suitable for driving as well.
A research team in Catl, which provides batteries for electric car manufacturers such as Tesla and BMW, has developed a way to reduce fire risk in car batteries that have won European Inventor Award in 2023. The patent chain, with incomplete descriptions about battery covers and short circuits, reaches a major step forward in preventing the accumulation of heat and catastrophic explosions when electric cars are excessive charging.
Patents to make safer batteries
China has Nearly 50 graduate studies program Focus on battery and mineral chemistry. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 65.5 percent of the widely mentioned technical papers on batteries technology come from researchers in China, compared to 12 percent of the United States.
By expanding competitiveness, China has sought to reduce “technology leakage”, some analysts said. As of July, Beijing I have been restricted Any effort to move from China Eight main technologies for the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries, through trade, investment or technological cooperation.
“China has often unofficially this in the past, but it has now become a written law,” said Mr. Adham.
It is very likely that China’s dominant role in the production of batteries will be strengthened unless other countries are similarly investing in research. Analysts say that these moves make the transition of global energy, which is essential to the efforts made to reduce the climate change by man, is more dependent on Chinese technologies.
Biqing Yang, an Ember analyst, a global energy research organization, has created its own analysis of the European Patent Office data. She said: “If China takes out the data, there are even recent years as you will find that global innovation has been riding or even slowing down.”
She said that the recent ads issued by the Chinese government indicated that they are pushing companies to look beyond the solar panels and batteries to more emerging technologies.
“Carbon capture, smart networks, heavy industry electrification, that is the border,” said Ms. Yang.
methodology
Patent data was provided by the European Patent Office, with each of the category of clean energy technology based on the Y02 signs plan or the partially conducted analysis with the International Energy Agency. The number of patents depends on “international patent families”, which must be presented in at least two countries and excludes double files covering the same invention.
The search data that was widely martyred by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which uses publishing data from The basic science group database. The basic database includes the publications reviewed by peers and magazines magazines and excludes book reviews, and the decline in publications and messages that are not considered to reflect research developments.
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