Archive
CONCENTRATED SOLAR POWER. Latest published applications 2015-2017. Optics
Summary
The pace of progress in commercialization of solar energy concentration technologies is largely being hampered by the high production and maintenance costs of optical elements, which make up the main capital and operating costs of a solar station. The solar collector must combine a number of conflicting specifications – a high reflectivity, simplicity, reliability, and durability of the construction, scratch resistance, high production figures, reasonable cost, etc. Most of the scientific and engineering studies in this field of technology are aimed at creating effective polymer and metal reflective materials, reducing the mass of silver in the reflective layer, and developing special anti-scoring and anti-reflective coatings. Recent patent applications from the proposed patent bulletin will help interested experts review the latest developments, including information about leading applicants, patent offices, and prominent patent solutions.
The present bulletin reviews patent applications registered by patent offices around the globe in 2015-2017 in the field related to Optics in Concentrated Solar Power. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 955 patent documents from 33 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 458 applicants from 36 countries and 587 subgroups of the International Patent Classification are mentioned.
Key Highlights
The bulletin contains statistical data on the distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The top three patent offices that registered the largest number of patent applications were CNIPA (CN), USPTO (US) and WIPO.
Based on the analysis of each of the patent applications, internal characteristics of unified indicators (technical problems, types of inventive solutions, belonging to one or other technological segment) were found, which allowed specific features for each of the indicators for the entire array of documents to be defined, for instance, to define the leading problems or technical solution types that were disclosed by the inventors the most. Document lists are provided for the ten most popular groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators, including their ID numbers and applicant names.
A list of the top 10 applicants by the number of patent documents includes 3M Innovative Properties Company (US), Konica Minolta, Inc. (JP), Fujifilm Corporation (JP), Abengoa Solar New Technologies, S.A. (ES), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (FR), Kuraray Co., Ltd. (JP), Chengdu Juhe Technology Co. Ltd (CN), Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (JP), ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG (DE) and University of Illinois (US). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices and technology indicators is provided in the form of tables and diagrams for them.
The bulletin contains lists of the top 10 prominent documents having the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and those not being part a of patent family.
The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the registered patent applications.
Who needs this bulletin?
The data provided in the proposed bulletin is a timely reflection of the transformations that take place in the intellectual property sector of the industrial direction concerned. A thoroughly edited selection of patent documents can become a good complement to your library of available technical solutions. The bulletin is targeted at inventors, engineers, researchers, managers and business administrators involved in the development of solar energy production technologies.
