Hydrometallurgical battery recycling destroys the cathode material’s crystal structure. US11631909B2 and its patent family show how direct recycling is emerging as an alternative.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics concentrates 12 of its 14 all-solid-state patents on ceramic (oxide-based) electrolytes. Here’s how oxide and polymer camps diverge in patent strategy.
As nickel content rises above 90%, both surface-coating and core-shell-gradient patents hit their limits, pushing high-nickel cathode strategy toward cobalt-free and high-manganese alternatives.
Samsung SDI claims 1,200+ US prismatic patents versus 30-40 for its rival; LG Energy Solution counters with 70,000 patents across the whole battery industry. Here’s the patent landscape behind the standoff.
Lithium metal anode patents are growing in number, but the published claims remain technologies that “guide dendrites to grow evenly” rather than technologies that “eliminate” them.
The core of the dry electrode patent contest is not the name of the process but the numbers and elements written into the claims.
The race to stake out sulfide-based all-solid-state patents is shifting away from finding new base compositions and toward what, and how much, to add to already-known sulfide electrolytes to shore up their weaknesses.
Rights in silicon anode patents rest not on silicon itself but on numbers that define in what ratio the silicon is confined within a framework such as an oxide, a metal, carbon, or magnesium silicate.
At InterBattery 2026, Korea’s three battery makers all widened their gaze to applications beyond EVs (AI data centers, robots, ESS), but the weapons they put forward differed.
Several hundred patents often do not mean several hundred inventions; they are frequently the result of dividing one foundational technology into units of detailed implementation, such as particles, composition, thickness, placement and assembly method, and filing on them layer upon layer.