Energy News Monitoring

Starting from 2012, the annual Derwent Top 100 Global Innovators report by Clarivate Analytics identifies the most innovative organizations around the world according to their patent activity. The methodology of the report is based on patent data from Derwent World Patents Index and Derwent Patent Citations Index within four indicators: 1. Volume of activity (to be included in the rating, the organisation must have at least 100 granted inventions in the last five years and more than 500 filed in total); 2.The level of downstream influence on others (Citations by other organisations over the last five years); 3. The level of granted patent issuance (the proportion of applications which succeeded to grant); 4. The level of globalization in broad patent filing (The proportion of inventions that were filed in all four of the key market patent offices of China, Europe, Japan and the United States measuring the level of investment of a patent applicant in their invention).

The ninth 2020 report listed the Top 100 Global Innovators out of 14,000 organizations. In comparison to the previous year, 84 innovators have maintained their position in the rating; 32 of them have been included in the list every year since the first edition in 2012. Six companies have joined the Top 100 for the first time. Four of them as well as 38% of all organisations in the rating represent the Hardware and electronics industry. Other industries represented in the Top 100 are: Manufacturing and medical (16%), Software (8%), Telecoms (8%), Chemicals and cosmetics (7%), Pharmaceuticals (6%), Automotive (4%), Aerospace and defense (4%), Household goods (4%), Institution and government research (4%) and Oil, gas and energy (1%).

A total of 14 countries are represented in the list. Changes from 2019 and 2020 consist of an increase in American firms (+6) and a decrease in Japanese firms (-7). These two countries together represent 71 of the 100 positions of the Top 100. The leading European country, France, occupies the third place with 5 companies, followed by Germany with 4 companies. Taiwan’s position has improved from three to four innovators. South Korea, China and Switzerland are represented by 3 companies each. The Netherlands has 2 companies in the hardware and electronics industry. Finland, Ireland, Russia, Sweden and Canada have made it into the Top 100 with one company each.

There has been a 12% increase in a global patent activity in general - 6.4 million patent documents published in 2019 compared to 5.7 million the previous year.
The only company that was selected in the Oil, gas & energy industry is LSIS, a South Korean provider of power systems, automations, green car solutions, smart grid solutions and photovoltaic systems. The company has been represented in the top 100 global innovator for 9 consecutive years.

 In recent years a lot of attention has been paid to transition to a zero-carbon economy and clean power generation, not least in the transport sector. Four Japanese companies, which provide new ideas in energy and transport, won a spot as Top 100 innovators in the automotive industry – Aisin Seiki, Honda, Nissan Motor and Toyota. For the development of the innovative and efficient technologies in Aerospace and defense industry, Boeing (USA), Japan Aviation Electronics (Japan), Raytheon (USA) and Thales (France) were recognized as the Derwent Top 100 Innovators 2020.