All-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) are regarded as the pinnacle of the next-generation energy storage technology, triggering a global research and development race.
The research team led by Chen Wei from the Wuhan Documentation and Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed the competitive situation of global ASSB (Advanced Storage System Battery) innovation capabilities and provided strategic insights for other countries on how to shift from quantity growth to quality breakthrough. The researchers systematically reviewed 7,533 scientific papers from the Web of Science database and 52,512 patent families from the Incopat patent database. The analysis results showed that China contributed nearly half of the global scientific papers (3,523), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences led the global research institutions with 656 papers. However, in terms of more representative patent indicators that represent technological innovation quality, the pattern reversed: Japan ranked first with 4,373 high-value patents (patent value score of 9-10), followed by the United States (3,860) and South Korea (2,185), while China ranked fourth with 1,471. More crucially, in the applications of patent priority holders reflecting originality, the United States (5,823) and Japan (4,328) led, with China (480) showing a significant gap. Further analysis of the top 20 major applicants globally revealed that Japanese enterprises (such as Toyota and Panasonic) demonstrated profound accumulation and a global perspective, not only having a leading total number of patents (Toyota with 2,234 ranked first), but also having made extensive foundational layout as early as 2006 and actively establishing intellectual property barriers in multiple regions such as China, the United States, and Europe. Korean giants (Samsung and LG) focused on the domestic and the United States core markets. In contrast, although six Chinese institutions (such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningde Time, and BYD) were among the top 20 globally, their patent layout was highly concentrated in the domestic market (with over 97% of the patents from the Chinese Academy of Sciences being filed only in China), and the degree of global protection was still insufficient. This “big but not strong” pattern reflects the strategic challenges China faces in transforming from research scale advantages to core innovation advantages.
Figure 1: Global Competitive Landscape Analysis of All-Solid-State Batteries
This study points out that the future leadership position of all-solid-state batteries will not only depend on scientific breakthroughs, but also on whether research scale can be transformed into high-quality basic innovation and the formulation of scientific global intellectual property strategies. The research suggests that reforming the quantity-oriented incentive system, strengthening international patent layout support, and establishing an industrial-academic-research collaborative research model similar to Japan’s NEDO are key paths to cultivating original technologies and enhancing the global innovation position. In the context of increasingly fierce global technology standard formulation and intellectual property competition, actively participating in international rule dialogues and forming cross-border layouts in key technologies will become key means for countries to compete for the dominance of the next-generation battery industry. The related research results were published in the Journal of Power Sources.