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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/lithium-sulfur-battery-solid-electrolyte-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Battery & Energy StorageLithium-Sulfur Battery Solid Electrolyte Patents: Who Leads and Where Filings Are Slowing
- Filings have cooled since the 2018 peak. 673 families published that year against 64 in the most recent (partial) year — a pattern of decline, not early-stage growth.
- Sulfide and polymer/gel layering is the active claim frontier. the representative Toyota filing stacks a sulfide solid electrolyte layer against a second polymer-or-gel layer, a structure that shows up repeatedly in recent filings.
- Momentum is falling even among the most active filers. CATL's latest-year filings are down 67% year-on-year, and several Korean majors show zero filings in the latest year after years of activity.
5,471
Published Records
45%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-17%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape maps 5,471 patent families published between 2015 and mid-2026 that combine lithium-sulfur battery chemistry with solid electrolyte claims, spanning sulfide, polymer, gel and hybrid electrolyte architectures. The search string isolates records that explicitly claim both the lithium-sulfur cell format and a solid or polysulfide-blocking electrolyte, rather than sulfur cathode work generally or solid electrolytes for other chemistries. Filing activity is concentrated in H01M (batteries, cells and fuel cells), with secondary claim density in inorganic compound chemistry, capacitors and polymer processing.
Because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months, the most recent year in the trend below is necessarily incomplete and should be read as a floor, not a ceiling. Even allowing for that lag, the shape of the curve — a 2018 peak followed by a decline toward the 2022 midpoint and beyond — points to a maturing claim space rather than one still being opened up.
Filing activity by year, 2017–2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lithium-Sulfur Battery Solid Electrolyte covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
The data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 5,471-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
A 2018 peak, then a slow decline
Filings ran from 395 in 2017 up to a peak of 673 in 2018, back down through a midpoint of 470 in 2022, and to 64 in the most recent partial year. Read the tail years as undercounts due to publication lag, but the multi-year decline predates that lag and is a genuine signal that the core architecture claims are largely staked out.
H01M dominates; secondary classes are thin
5,277 of the 5,471 records sit in H01M, confirming this is fundamentally a battery-cell claim space rather than a materials-science one filed elsewhere. The next largest classes — C01B (non-metallic elements and inorganic compounds, 385) and H01G (capacitors, 265) — are an order of magnitude smaller, and classes like C23C (coating and surface deposition, 68) suggest processing and interface-engineering claims remain a comparatively open, lightly filed corner of the space.
Shares are the percentage of the 5,471 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lithium-Sulfur Battery Solid Electrolyte covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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The record setting the current claim structure
Representative recent filing
Lithium sulfur battery and method for manufacturing lithium sulfur battery (Toyota, 2025)
TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
A lithium sulfur battery comprising a cathode layer, a first solid electrolyte layer, a second solid electrolyte layer, and an anode layer in this order, where the first layer is a sulfide solid electrolyte and the second is a polymer electrolyte and/or a gel electrolyte.The two-layer electrolyte stack — sulfide adjacent to cathode, polymer/gel adjacent to anode — is the structural detail worth tracking in adjacent filings.
Most-cited records in this corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US6025094A | Protective coatings for negative electrodes | 756 |
| 2 | US20150364747A1 | Materials for solid state electrolytes and protective electrode coatings for lithium batteries | 400 |
| 3 | US5523179A | Rechargeable positive electrode | 379 |
| 4 | US20160043384A1 | Graphene foam-protected anode active materials for lithium batteries | 362 |
| 5 | US5814420A | Rechargeable positive electrodes | 346 |
| 6 | US6413285B1 | Layered arrangements of lithium electrodes | 340 |
| 7 | US5686201A | Rechargeable positive electrodes | 319 |
| 8 | US6214061B1 | Method for forming encapsulated lithium electrodes having glass protective layers | 291 |
| 9 | US7070632B1 | Electrochemical device separator structures with barrier layer on non-swelling membrane | 288 |
| 10 | US5582623A | Methods of fabricating rechargeable positive electrodes | 286 |
Citation counts inside this corpus favour older, foundational filings — treat them as a signal of influence on later claim drafting, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lithium-Sulfur Battery Solid Electrolyte covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers say about the state of the art
Three read-outs from the filing trend, technology composition and citation data.
Filing momentum
673 → 64
peak year (2018) vs. latest partial year
The claim space opened fast and has been closing since
A 2018 peak followed by a steady decline through the 470-filing midpoint in 2022 down to 64 in the latest partial year indicates the core architecture claims — layered solid electrolytes paired with lithium-sulfur chemistry — are largely staked out, even accounting for publication lag understating the last year or two.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Claim concentration
5,277 of 5,471
records classified under H01M
Almost all activity sits in one IPC subclass
H01M absorbs the overwhelming majority of filings, with C01B, H01G, C01G, C08J, H01B, B60L and C23C each carrying a small fraction of the volume. That imbalance means differentiated claims are more likely to survive in the smaller classes — particularly coating and processing routes under C23C — than in the crowded core.
IPC composition table
Citation influence
756 citations
on the most-cited record
Foundational coating and cathode patents still anchor citation trees
The most-cited records in this corpus are protective-coating and positive-electrode patents rather than recent solid-electrolyte-specific filings, which is expected given citation counts favour older art. New entrants should treat these as prior-art anchors to design around rather than as evidence of where current competitive activity sits.
Most-cited records
Eureka AI Agent
Looking for what nobody has claimed yet?
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to lithium-sulfur battery solid electrolyte, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lithium-Sulfur Battery Solid Electrolyte covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Who is filing
Assignee activity and where it is heading
Filing leadership in this space has shifted toward Chinese and Korean battery majors, but recent-year momentum is negative across nearly all of the most active filers.
Momentum leader, declining
-67% YoY
CATL, latest year
CATL still files the most, but has slowed sharply
CATL recorded 28 filings in the latest year, down 67% year-on-year — still the highest volume among tracked assignees in that period, but the steepest pace it has shown in the trend data.
Recent-year momentum
Korean majors pulling back
0 in latest year
LG Chem, Samsung SDI, Samsung Electronics
Several long-standing filers show zero latest-year activity
LG Chem, Samsung SDI and Samsung Electronics (Korea) each show no filings in the latest year, with Samsung SDI and Samsung Electronics down 100% year-on-year — a marked change from their earlier co-filing activity together.
Recent-year momentum
Co-filing patterns
107 co-filings
Samsung SDI + Samsung Electronics (Korea)
Co-assignee pairs cluster around a handful of corporate-university links
The strongest co-assignee pair by far is Samsung SDI with Samsung Electronics (Korea) at 107 shared filings; LG Energy Solution's pairing with SNU R&DB Foundation and LG Chem's with KAIST are smaller but point to recurring corporate-academic collaboration routes in this field.
Co-assignee pairs
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. (CATL) | 28 | -67% |
| LG Energy Solution | 4 | -83% |
| Hong Kong CATL New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. | 2 | -94% |
| LG Chem | 0 | — |
| Samsung SDI | 0 | -100% |
| Samsung Electronics (Korea) | 0 | -100% |
| Nanotek Instruments | 0 | — |
| Advanced Polymer Battery, Inc. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lithium-Sulfur Battery Solid Electrolyte covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's next
Where to take this next
The trend and assignee data point to a space where the broad architecture is claimed and the remaining opportunity is in interface and processing detail.
Map the sulfide/polymer bilayer claim boundary
The Toyota representative filing and the broader H01M concentration suggest layered electrolyte structures are the active battleground; a claim-by-claim comparison of bilayer patents would show exactly where the boundary sits.
Explore this branch in EurekaWatch CATL's slowing filing rate against its co-filing partners
A 67% year-on-year drop from the leading filer is worth tracking against its collaboration patterns to see whether activity is shifting to partners or simply cooling.
Track assignee activity in EurekaCheck freedom-to-operate against the highest-cited coating patents
The most-cited records in this corpus are protective-coating patents that predate solid-electrolyte-specific claims; any new coating approach should be checked against them directly.
Run a citation check in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lithium-Sulfur Battery Solid Electrolyte covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
Based on this dataset, CATL is the most active recent filer, with 28 filings in the latest tracked year despite a 67% year-on-year decline. LG Energy Solution and its Hong Kong affiliate also appear among active recent filers, though at lower and likewise declining volumes. Korean majors including LG Chem, Samsung SDI and Samsung Electronics (Korea) were historically significant filers, often co-filing together, but show no filings in the latest tracked year.
No — filing volume peaked in 2018 at 673 families and has declined since, down to 470 at the 2022 midpoint and 64 in the latest partial year. Some of that recent drop is publication lag, since filings typically take about 18 months to appear in the record, but the multi-year decline predates the lag window and reflects a genuine slowdown in new filing activity. This pattern is more consistent with a maturing, well-claimed architecture than an emerging one.
The IPC composition shows H01M absorbing the vast majority of filings (5,277 of 5,471), leaving classes like C23C (coating and surface deposition, 68 records) and B60L (electric vehicle propulsion, 85 records) comparatively lightly claimed. Interface coating chemistries that block polysulfide migration, and EV-integration-specific claims around solid-electrolyte lithium-sulfur cells, both look under-filed relative to the core battery-architecture claims. These are reasonable areas to search closely before assuming a novel filing route is blocked.
It claims a lithium sulfur battery with a specific four-layer stack: a cathode layer, a first solid electrolyte layer made of a sulfide solid electrolyte, a second solid electrolyte layer made of a polymer and/or gel electrolyte, and an anode layer, in that order. The significance is the bilayer electrolyte structure — sulfide adjacent to the cathode, polymer or gel adjacent to the anode — rather than either electrolyte type alone. Anyone designing a layered solid-electrolyte lithium-sulfur cell should check this specific layer ordering and material pairing against their own architecture.
Treat them cautiously: the most-cited records in this corpus, such as the protective-coating and positive-electrode patents with citation counts of 756, 400 and 379, are older filings that have simply had more time to accumulate citations within the searched corpus. High citation counts signal influence on how later claims were drafted, not that the technology is currently the most commercially active. Recent filing volume and IPC composition are better indicators of where activity is happening now.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on Lithium-Sulfur Battery Solid Electrolyte covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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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.