Lithium Metal Foil Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- Filing has cooled since its 2018 peak of 10. the 2022 midpoint sits at just 2 filings a year, and the trend has not recovered — this looks like a field where the core claim space was staked out early rather than one still being actively contested.
- 45.2% of all 115 records sit with the top five assignees. concentration is real but not extreme: the top ten combined reach 65.2%, leaving a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants still able to find room.
- Batteries dominate the IPC mix at 89.6% of records. but metal rolling (7.0%) and web/sheet handling (1.7%) appear as small, distinct process classes — signs that foil-forming and handling claims are filed separately from the electrochemistry.
What this landscape covers
This review maps 115 published records filed between 2015 and mid-2026 that claim lithium metal foil, lithium anode foil, or thin lithium film, combined with process language around thickness uniformity, handling, surface passivation, extrusion, rolling or supply. The scope deliberately pairs an electrochemical material claim with a manufacturing or handling term, so the set skews toward records where how the foil is made or handled is part of the claimed invention, not just the chemistry.
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the last one to two years in any trend chart will understate real filing activity. Family counts, rather than raw document counts, are used for the assignee ranking to avoid overweighting applicants who file continuations or file the same invention in multiple jurisdictions.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 115 records: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims fall into. Both use the full record set as the denominator, and a single record can carry more than one IPC class.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Filings ran at 9 in 2017 and peaked at 10 in 2018. By the 2022 midpoint, annual filings had fallen to 2, and the trend through 2026 (partial year) shows no recovery — a flat-to-declining pattern rather than a growth curve.
IPC subclass distribution
H01M (batteries, cells & fuel cells) covers 89.6% of the 115 records, confirming the corpus is anchored in battery applications. H01G (capacitors) reaches 20.9%, while the process-oriented classes — B21B metal rolling at 7.0%, C10M lubricants at 5.2%, B32B laminates at 3.5%, C22F metal treatment at 2.6%, B21D sheet-metal working and B65H web/sheet handling each at 1.7% — are small but persistent, marking out the manufacturing side of the claim space as a distinct, thinner layer.
Shares are the percentage of the 115 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Lithium Metal Foil and Anode Materials with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about lithium metal foil and anode materials and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative filing and most-cited prior art
Ultra-thin lithium film laminate and method for preparing the same (US20240204262A1)
The filing claims an ultra-thin lithium film, 0.5–20 μm thick with a tolerance within ±0.5 μm, bonded to a supporting layer with a solid electrolyte interface layer at that bonded interface, and through-holes sized 5–200 μm across the film.Filed by China Energy Lithium Co., Ltd, published 2024-06-20.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5445906A | Method and system for constructing a rechargeable battery and battery structures formed with the method | 296 |
| 2 | US6242129B1 | Thin lithium film battery | 137 |
| 3 | US6517968B2 | Thin lithium film battery | 128 |
| 4 | US20090246626A1 | Lithium metal foil for battery or capacitor | 69 |
| 5 | US20170301485A1 | Method of negative electrode pre-lithiation for lithium-ion capacitors | 54 |
| 6 | JP2012038686A | Method for predoping lithium, method for manufacturing electrode, and power storage device using the methods | 46 |
| 7 | CN107819104A | 锂铜复合负极箔片的制备方法 | 30 |
| 8 | WO2007072713A1 | Lithium metal foil for battery or capacitor | 30 |
| 9 | WO2000060682A1 | Thin lithium film battery | 30 |
| 10 | WO2002101857A1 | Thin lithium film battery | 28 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations; treat them as a signal of influence on the field, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the concentration, trend and jurisdiction data — useful for deciding where to file, who to watch, and how much weight to put on the most-cited prior art.
Leadership is real but not locked
The leader holds 13 records against a fifth-place figure of 9 and a tenth-place figure of 4 — a gradual taper, not a cliff. With the top ten combined at 65.2% of the 115 records in scope, over a third of the field is held by entities outside the ranked leaders, which is meaningful room for a new entrant with a genuinely different process claim.
The field has cooled since 2018
Filing activity peaked at 10 records in 2018 and had fallen to 2 by the 2022 midpoint, with no recovery visible through the partial 2026 year. That pattern is more consistent with an early land-grab on core claims than with a technology still attracting fresh investment — though the 18-month publication lag means the very latest years are always undercounted.
Manufacturing claims sit apart from the chemistry
Metal rolling (7.0%), sheet-metal working (1.7%) and web/sheet handling (1.7%) are each claimed in only a handful of records despite the search scope explicitly including handling and extrusion language. That gap suggests foil-forming process claims are thinner and less contested than the battery-chemistry claims that dominate the H01M share.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to lithium metal foil and anode materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gaps sit
The ranked leaders span battery cell makers, capacitor specialists and materials suppliers, but the taper from leader to tenth place leaves clear room outside the top group. The chips below flag sub-areas the search scope covers but where filing density is thin.
A single leader, not a runaway
The top-ranked assignee holds 13 of the 115 records, ahead of a fifth-place figure of 9 and a tenth-place figure of 4. That is enough to set the pace on core lithium-foil claims without closing off the field.
Filing is spread across five major offices
The United States (27) and Europe (24) lead as receiving offices, with China and Japan each at 13 and South Korea at 9, plus 7 filed via WIPO/PCT. No single jurisdiction dominates, which points to a genuinely international competitive set rather than a regionally contained one.
Co-filing is rare in this dataset
Only three co-assignee pairs appear across the full record set, all involving the same corporate entity paired with individual named inventors. Joint filings between separate companies are effectively absent, suggesting most work here is done in-house rather than through disclosed partnerships.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Excellatron Solid State LLC | 0 | — |
| OXIS Energy | 0 | — |
| KRI Inc | 0 | — |
| Subaru Corp | 0 | — |
| LG Energy Solution Ltd | 0 | — |
| Blue Solutions Canada Inc | 0 | — |
| Tianjin Lishen Battery Co Ltd | 0 | — |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 0 | — |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a field with staked-out core chemistry claims and thinner process-side coverage. The next steps depend on whether you are clearing a product or scouting where to file.
Clear a specific process route
If you are working on a rolling, extrusion or handling method for ultra-thin lithium foil, check it against the process-side classes (B21B, B21D, B65H) rather than assuming the battery-chemistry claims cover it — they mostly do not.
Explore this landscape in Eureka →Watch the leader's next moves
With the leading assignee holding 13 of 115 records and filing overall in decline since 2018, a resumption of filing from the top-ranked player would be the clearest early signal of renewed competitive interest.
Track assignee activity in Eureka →Scope a freedom-to-operate check
Before committing to a thickness-tolerance or SEI-interface claim, run a targeted search against the most-cited prior art in this set, since several of those records carry citation counts well above the field average.
Run a freedom-to-operate search in Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
The dataset ranks 39 companies by family count, with the leading assignee holding 13 of the 115 records in scope. The top five assignees combined account for 45.2% of all records, and the top ten reach 65.2%, which means over a third of the field sits outside the most active filers. No single company controls a majority of the claim space, so freedom-to-operate work still has to look beyond the leaders.
Filing peaked at 10 records in 2018 and had fallen to 2 by the 2022 midpoint, with no recovery visible through the partial 2026 year. That is a flat-to-declining pattern rather than a growth curve, though publication lags filing by roughly 18 months so the most recent one to two years are always undercounted. Read the tail of any trend chart on this topic with that lag in mind.
In this dataset, 89.6% of records fall under H01M (batteries, cells & fuel cells), confirming most claims are written around the electrochemical cell or capacitor application. But a smaller set of records also carry process classes like B21B (metal rolling, 7.0%) or B65H (web and sheet handling, 1.7%), which cover how the foil itself is formed or handled rather than how it performs electrochemically. Those two claim types are often filed separately, so a search on chemistry alone can miss the manufacturing exposure.
The thinnest-claimed sub-areas in this scope are the manufacturing and handling processes: metal rolling, sheet-metal working and web/sheet handling each appear in only a handful of the 115 records despite the search terms explicitly covering thickness uniformity, extrusion and handling language. Thickness-tolerance control during rolling and roll-to-roll handling of free-standing foil both look under-claimed relative to how central they are to actually manufacturing usable ultra-thin lithium foil. That gap is where a well-drafted process claim is more likely to clear prior art.
US20240204262A1, filed by China Energy Lithium Co., Ltd and published 2024-06-20, claims an ultra-thin lithium film 0.5 to 20 micrometres thick with a tolerance within plus or minus 0.5 micrometres, bonded to a supporting layer with a solid electrolyte interface at that bonded surface, and through-holes sized 5 to 200 micrometres. It is a recent filing rather than one of the most-cited records in this set, but its specificity on thickness tolerance and interface structure makes it a useful benchmark for anyone drafting claims in the same thickness range.
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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.