LMO Battery Efficiency Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- Filing has cooled since its 2022 peak of 13 families, with the most recent year showing zero — a signal to check whether new work has simply not published yet, not that the field is closed.
- C01G compounds show up in 44 of 100 families, meaning nearly half of this claim space is really about manganese-oxide chemistry, not cell architecture.
- The most-cited prior art dates to the late 1990s and early 2000s, so the foundational stabilization and active-material claims are old enough that freedom-to-operate hinges on expired or soon-expiring rights.
Filing growth compares 2021 (3 records) with 2024 (10) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 100 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set actually covers
This landscape tracks patent families whose title or abstract combine lithium manganese oxide chemistry (LMO, LiMn2O4) with explicit efficiency language — coulombic efficiency, energy density enhancement, rate capability improvement or low-resistance design — and whose IPC classification sits in the core battery-cell and cathode-material codes. That combination narrows a broad LMO literature down to filings that specifically claim an efficiency or performance gain rather than general cell construction.
The dataset spans 2015 through the 2026 cut-off and holds 100 published families. Filing offices skew heavily toward the United States and PCT routes, with Europe, China, Canada and Australia making up the remainder — a pattern consistent with a chemistry-and-materials field where applicants file first in their home jurisdiction and extend selectively rather than filing broadly worldwide from day one.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 100-family set: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
A peak in 2022, then a pullback
Annual filings rose from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 13 in 2022, then declined. The most recent year shows 0, which is expected given an 18-month average lag between filing and publication — the true 2025-2026 filing level will not be visible in this dataset for some time yet. Read the decline from 2022 as a real signal, and the final year or two as unreliable.
Manganese-oxide chemistry dominates the mix
Every family sits in H01M (batteries and cells) by construction of the search, but 44 of the 100 also carry a C01G code covering compounds of other metals — chiefly manganese-oxide compound chemistry. Smaller counts touch power/grid integration (H02J), nanotechnology (B82Y), crystal growth (C30B) and EV propulsion (B60L), showing that most inventive effort here is at the material level rather than at the pack, module or vehicle-integration level.
Shares are the percentage of the 100 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Lithium Manganese Oxide Battery Efficiency Enhancement with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about lithium manganese oxide battery efficiency enhancement and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe prior art doing the most citation work
US8142933B2 — Anode material for high power lithium ion batteries
Assigned to Pyrotek, this filing pairs a carbonaceous anode — built from synthetic graphite, carbon-coated graphite, carbonized petroleum coke or carbon-coated coke particles — with a lithium manganese oxide spinel cathode held above a valence of 3.5. The claims tie anode material selection directly to a measured initial coulombic efficiency and specific capacity of the paired cathode, rather than claiming either electrode in isolation.Filed as a full cell system claim, not a standalone cathode or anode composition claim.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6183718B1 | Method of making stabilized electrochemical cell active material of lithium manganese oxide | 116 |
| 2 | US5766796A | Passivation-free solid state battery | 41 |
| 3 | US6869547B2 | Stabilized electrochemical cell active material | 36 |
| 4 | US20020070374A1 | Stabilized electrochemical cell active material | 34 |
| 5 | US6392385B1 | Battery operation for extended cycle life | 29 |
| 6 | WO2001013443A2 | Active material having extended cycle life | 28 |
| 7 | US20110070498A1 | Anode material for high power lithium ion batteries | 19 |
| 8 | US20180026317A1 | PHOTO-ASSISTED FAST CHARGING OF LITHIUM MANGANESE OXIDE SPINEL (LiMn2O4) IN LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES | 15 |
| 9 | US6555026B1 | Stabilized electrochemical cell active material | 13 |
| 10 | WO2000015557A1 | Manganese oxide-based material | 11 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older filings, since they have had more years to accumulate citations. Read them as a measure of influence on the field to date, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three data points that change how a team should read this space, beyond a simple count of who filed what.
The field crested and is now cooling
Filings climbed from 4 in 2017 to a peak of 13 in 2022 before pulling back. Combined with the 18-month publication lag, the honest reading is that the field has plateaued rather than accelerated — new entrants should confirm the current pipeline through non-patent sources before assuming white space is expanding.
Nearly half the claim space is chemistry, not architecture
A C01G classification alongside H01M shows up in 44 of the 100 families, meaning the dominant inventive activity is manganese-oxide compound composition and stabilization rather than cell design, pack integration or grid-facing systems (H02J, 6 families).
The oldest claims still anchor the field
The most-cited record, on stabilized LMO active material, was filed well before 2015 and carries 116 citations — more than double the next most-cited filing. Later entrants are largely building refinements on top of this stabilization approach rather than replacing it.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to lithium manganese oxide battery efficiency enhancement, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who holds the claim space, and where it thins out
Assignee activity here is concentrated among a small group of materials and battery specialists, with co-filing between named individual inventors and their assignee organizations, and momentum has slowed across the board in the most recent tracked year.
Inventor-assignee pairs anchor the core cluster
The strongest co-assignee relationship in the dataset links a single materials-focused assignee with two named inventors, appearing together across several families. This is typical of a specialist team prosecuting a coherent stabilization or active-material program rather than a diffuse set of unrelated filers.
Every tracked leader shows zero in the latest year
Every one of the most active assignees in this set — from specialist battery-materials firms to a national research council and a large EV/battery manufacturer — shows zero filings in the latest tracked year. Given the publication lag, this is more likely a reporting gap than an actual stop in R&D.
US and PCT routes carry most of the volume
The United States receives the largest share of filings (39), followed by PCT applications (17) and the EPO (14). China, Canada and Australia each account for a smaller share, suggesting most applicants treat this as a US-anchored program extended selectively abroad.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Valence Technology, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (South Africa) | 0 | — |
| Ningde Amperex Technology Limited (ATL) | 0 | — |
| BARKER JEREMY | 0 | — |
| Dyson Technology Limited | 0 | -100% |
| UChicago Argonne, LLC | 0 | — |
| BYD Company Limited | 0 | — |
| University of Virginia Patent Foundation | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
This dataset answers what has been claimed; the next step is testing a specific direction against it.
Map a candidate claim against the stabilization cluster
Run a proposed cathode-stabilization or coating approach against the most-cited records to see how close it sits to the foundational 1990s-2000s art before drafting.
Explore in Patsnap EurekaCheck the under-claimed branches for real activity
The gaps flagged here — grid integration, current-collector design, dissolution suppression — need a fresh non-patent literature check, since low patent density can mean either opportunity or simply no market pull yet.
Run a deeper search in Patsnap EurekaWatch for the publication-lag correction
Re-run this trend in a future data cut to see whether the apparent 2022 peak and subsequent decline holds once the most recent two years finish publishing.
Track this space in Patsnap EurekaCommon questions on LMO efficiency patents
In this dataset, it is a patent family whose title or abstract combines lithium manganese oxide chemistry — LMO or LiMn2O4 — with explicit efficiency language such as coulombic efficiency, energy density enhancement, rate capability improvement, or low-resistance design, and whose classification falls in the core battery-cell and cathode-material IPC codes. That combination excludes general LMO cell-construction patents that do not make a specific efficiency claim, so the 100 families here are a focused subset of the broader LMO literature.
Filing volume rose from 4 families in 2017 to a peak of 13 in 2022, then declined toward the present, with the most recent year showing zero. Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, that final zero almost certainly understates real filing activity rather than proving the field has stopped. The honest read is a plateau or mild decline from the 2022 peak, not an active field in fresh growth.
Activity concentrates among a small group of specialist battery-materials firms, a national research council, and named individual inventors who co-file with a lead assignee, rather than a broad field of unrelated filers. The strongest co-assignee relationship links one materials-focused organization with two named inventors across six shared families. Every one of the leading assignees shows zero filings in the latest tracked year, which is more consistent with the publication lag than with a real stop in research.
US8142933B2, assigned to Pyrotek, claims a full cell system pairing a carbonaceous anode with an LMO spinel cathode held above a valence of 3.5, where anode material selection is tied to a measured initial coulombic efficiency and specific capacity of that specific cathode. It does not claim either electrode material in isolation, so work on LMO cathodes paired with non-carbonaceous anodes, or carbonaceous anodes paired with a different cathode chemistry, sits outside its literal scope. Anyone building a similarly paired carbon-anode-plus-high-valence-LMO-cathode system should review its claims closely before finalizing a design.
The clearest gaps sit outside the dominant cathode-chemistry cluster: grid-integration control for LMO-based packs, low-resistance current-collector design, LMO paired with silicon or other alternative anode chemistries for rate capability, and manganese-dissolution suppression coatings all show thin coverage relative to the roughly 44-family core cluster in compound chemistry. Low filing density in these branches does not guarantee commercial opportunity — it may simply reflect limited past interest — so it is worth confirming demand signals outside the patent record before investing there.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.