Due to global warming and environmental concerns, renewable energy technology has emerged not only to meet the need for the environmental sustainability but could also create economic opportunities these days. In the past decade, Taiwan government already started renewable energy industry development strategy, while the domestic academic institutions and industry sectors had also engaged in various low-carbon emission technologies.
Previously Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) made a patent analysis to investigate the green technology patent trend in Taiwan. The analysis was conducted on the laid-open invention patent applications from 2005 to 2015 through their IPC (International Patent Classification), and the results found 33,505 green patent applications in which 15,434 applications were filed by domestic applicants (46%) and 18,071 applications by foreign applicants (54%). TIPO categorized these green patent applications into seven types of which the most filing cases are LED lighting, energy information/communication technology and electric vehicles with lithium-ion battery, followed by fuel cell, solar photovoltaics and biomass fuel, while clean energy has the lowest filing cases. Below are the top applicants who filed the most of green patent applications in Taiwan (with their filing cases, and percentage of applicant’s nationality for each type of green technology).
Solar photovoltaics
Industrial Technology Research Institute (183), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (144), AU Optronics (82), Fujifilm (69), DuPont (68), Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (67), Atomic Energy Council (62), LG Chemical (61), Hitachi Chemical (61), Motech Industries (58)
(Taiwan 40%, Japan 31%, US 15%, Europe 8%, Korea 4% and others 2%)
LED lighting
OLED : Idemitsu Kosan (170), Samsung Display (165), Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (137), Sumitomo Chemical (103)
ILED : Epistar (256), Koninklijke Philips Electronics (242), Showa Denko (226), Advanced Optoelectronic Technology (191), Osram Opto Semiconductors (184), Toshiba (175), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (170)
(Taiwan 40%、Japan 31%, US 10%, Europe 9%, Korea 8%, China 1% and others 1%)
Clean energy (wind, ocean, geothermal and hybrid power)
Wobben Properties GmbH, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, National Sun Yat-sen University, National Chung Hsing University (the top 2 applicants has each 14 cases, while the rest are each less than 10 cases)
(Taiwan 73%, Japan 11%, Europe 9%, US 4%, others 3%)
Biomass fuel
UOP LLC (63), Sinopec Corp. (43), Industrial Technology Research Institute (42), Thyssenkrupp Uhde GmbH (42), Shell International Research (38), ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Company (25)
(Taiwan 37%, Japan 14%, US 22%, Europe 19%, China 4%, Korea 1%, others 3%)
Energy information and communication technology (EICT for green)
Hon Hai Precision Industry (526), Autoteki Technology (118), Industrial Technology Research Institute (102), Inventec Corporation (89), Delta Electronics (85), Seiko Instruments (73), Sony (70), Advantest (62), Wistron (56), Panasonic (55)
(Taiwan 62%, Japan 15%, US 15%, Europe 3%, China 2%, Korea 2%, others 1%)
Fuel cell
Industrial Technology Research Institute (116), Toshiba (82), Intelligent Energy Limited (60), Hon Hai Precision Industry (51), Antig Technology (51), Yuan Ze University (50), LG Chemical (48), Atomic Energy Council (46), Sumitomo Chemical (41), Yamaha Motor (39)
(Taiwan 44%, Japan 29%, US 11%, Europe 8%, Korea 5%, China and others 3%)
Lithium-ion battery related technology for electric vehicles
Hon Hai Precision Industry, Autoteki Technology, Panasonic, Delta Electronics, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Seiko Instruments, Sony , Honda Motor, Qualcomm, Acer, Access Business Group International LLC (only the top applicant has over 200 cases, while others are in the range of 40 to 100 cases)
(Taiwan 59%, Japan 17%, US 16%, Europe 3%, China 2%, others 3%)
In addition to the above patent analysis, it is to be noted also that a faster examination process was implemented by TIPO on January 1, 2014 for green patent application under AEP program. The applicant can file such request of AEP by stating how his invention contributes to green technology or by submitting an evidencing document of the same. Normally the average time for TIPO to issue the first examination result of an invention application would be from 15 to 28 months depending on the technical field, but it will be shortened to 9 months for a green patent application filed under AEP.
