Battery industry patent infringement is at this level… LG Energy Solution pulls out a knife

LG Energy Solution has taken a stab at the ‘patent free riding’ that is rampant in the battery industry.

LG Energy Solutions announced on the 24th, “We will respond strongly to companies that use patents illegally through lawsuits and warnings.”

The reason why LG Energy Solutions is taking a hard line against patent free riding is because there has been a series of indiscriminate infringements of intellectual property rights (IP) by battery latecomers.

Infringement confirmed in 580 out of 1,000 strategic patents

According to related industries, LG Energy Solutions currently has 32,000 patents registered and 58,000 patents filed, ranging from the first generation technology, which is the basic technology currently commercialized and used in battery manufacturing, to the cutting-edge third generation technology.

Among these patents, there are about 1,000 ‘strategic patents’ that competitors have infringed or are expected to infringe. LG Energy Solutions announced that among these, the number of patents that were actually confirmed to have been infringed by competitors amounts to 580.

For example, global battery company A supplies electric vehicle batteries to company B, which sells electric vehicles throughout Europe. Analysis results show that LG Energy Solution has infringed on more than 30 patents in key materials and processes such as coating separators and cathode materials. .

When analyzing the batteries of Company C, which supplies batteries to electronic device manufacturers, it was found that they infringed on more than 50 patents of LG Energy Solutions.

LG Energy Solution said, “From small batteries for IT devices to medium-to-large batteries for electric vehicles, many cases of infringement on LG Energy Solution’s unique technology have been found in competitors’ products that have already been commercialized and sold in the market.”

In the meantime, LG Energy Solution has filed lawsuits against competitors for patent infringement or theft of trade secrets at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and German courts.

However, despite this, intellectual property rights violations continue and even major automakers do not consider compliance with patent rights when selecting battery suppliers, leading to serious market distortions, leading to the decision to take a stronger response.

Strong response from licensing business to lawsuits, etc.

According to market research firm SNE Research, the electric vehicle battery market has grown approximately 25 times from 28GWh (gigawatt hours) in 2015 to 706GWh in 2023, and is expected to grow to 5,256GWh in 2035.

Unlike LG Energy Solutions, which has secured key technology patents as the market grows, latecomers who have difficulty securing quality patents are expanding their market penetration into Europe, China, India, and Southeast Asia through unauthorized use of patents.

Accordingly, LG Energy Solutions plans to utilize various monetization models, such as patent pools and patent rights sales, to lead the establishment of a reasonable licensing market.

First, we plan to streamline licensing business and management by gradually licensing major patents through a global patent pool, focusing on patents that are currently being infringed in the market.

Through this, a virtuous cycle can be created where leading companies receive reasonable royalties for patent rights and expand investments in technology development, and latecomers increase the competitiveness of their products through legitimate use of patent rights.

If indiscriminate infringement of technology continues without a proper license agreement, we plan to take strong action, including filing a lawsuit to prohibit patent infringement.

To this end, we plan to actively secure local experts in major markets such as the United States, Europe, and China to strengthen our global litigation capabilities and expand overseas IP offices that manage intellectual property rights (IP) to systematically manage and supervise global intellectual property rights. .

Kim Dong-myeong, CEO of LG Energy Solutions, said, “Respect for intellectual property rights is an essential element for fair competition in the global market.” He added, “For the survival of the company and the development of the industry, we will protect intellectual property rights and respond strictly to indiscriminate patent infringement.” “He emphasized.