Berkeley-based IP Checkups recently published its 2013 Annual Report on cleantech patenting trends. Based on the firm’s proprietary green patent database – Cleantech PatentEdge™ – the report contains much interesting analysis driven by this powerful data analytics tool.
The major finding of the report is that, after several years of growth, worldwide published cleantech patent filings declined in 2013. This is measured by the number of cleantech patent documents published, which typically means a lag time of 18 months from application filing date for published patent applications, and may reflect the decrease in cleantech venture capital funding in 2013.
More particularly, the number of worldwide patent documents published in 2013 decreased by 6% from 2012.
Against this global backdrop, the share of U.S. patent grants grew over the last several years from 16% of the worldwide total in 2009 to 22% last year. Interestingly, the share of U.S. published patent applications has remained fairly steady over this period, comprising about 1/3 of worldwide cleantech patent publications.
The report also looks at green patent documents by industry sector and found that Renewable Energy Generation is the leading sector with 23% of the patent documents. This lead is attributable to growth in solar and biofuels patents, according to the report.
Other sectors that have seen growth in the past several years are Transportation, Green Materials, Energy Storage, and Efficiency.
You can read the complete report here.