Who Really ‘Invented’ the Hybrid?

The Griffith Hack law firm in Australia recently published a report that analyzes hybrid car patent filings and how those filings affect innovation and success in the hybrid car market.

The report, entitled “Who holds the power? Lessons from hybrid car innovation for clean technologies”, was written by Justin Blows and Mike Lloyd, both members of the firm’s Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group.

Dr. Blows and his colleague used patent analytics tools to compile a list of all hybrid car patents filed internationally since 1980, group those patents into families, and rate the quality or “dominance” of those patents.

Their analysis found that Toyota is the world leader in hybrid car patent families with 43% of the total, or more than 4,000 families.

Interestingly, the study also found that a small U.S. hybrid drivetrain developer called Paice, which has been aggressively litigating its patents against Toyota with some success, holds four of the ten most dominant patents.

The implications of Toyota’s patent dominance is discussed at length in the report. Dr. Blows’s blog post summarizes as follows:

the market leader in hybrid technology has filed so many patents ahead of its rivals, that other major manufacturers are now being forced to use the technology ‘under license’ or develop very different types of vehicles

According to the report, there is an apparent correlation between the number of hybrid cars sold by Toyota and the number of patents filed.

Moreover, and perhaps most important, the report posits that Toyota’s agressive patent filings have helped the automaker build its hybrid brand and set “the standard for the hybrid power train” by creating early and lasting exclusivity in its vehicles’ dual-mode capability, i.e., the ability to drive using one or both of an electric motor and a conventional motor.

More broadly, in his comments about the report, Dr. Blows echoes Green Patent Blog’s raison d’etre:

“Our report shows that clean technology innovators are massively investing in IP, to ensure they remain competitive as the world moves into a new age of clean technology.”

Eric Lane is a patent attorney and intellectual property lawyer at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego, where he is in the Intellectual Property and Climate Change & Clean Technology practices. Eric is the founder and author of Green Patent Blog, which provides discussion and analysis of intellectual property law issues in clean technology.