Sodium-Ion Battery Modularity Patents: Leaders & Trends 2026
- Filing only started in earnest after 2022, with the peak year so far (9 families in 2024) arriving right as sodium-ion cell formats began reaching commercial announcement stage.
- Power supply and grid systems (H02J) outweigh battery-cell classifications (H01M) 13 to 7, showing the claim activity is concentrated on pack-level integration and control, not cell chemistry itself.
- The two most-cited records in the set share the same title and inventor lineage, a single vehicle battery-pack arrangement family that anchors prior art for thermal-management-between-modules designs.
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks 22 patent families at the intersection of sodium-ion battery chemistry and modular pack design — filings that combine sodium-ion terminology with modular battery pack, standardized cell format, or modular design language. It is a narrow, cross-disciplinary slice: most records sit in power-electronics and vehicle-propulsion classifications rather than pure electrochemistry, which tells you where the applicants think the defensible claims are right now.
Filing activity is recent and still building. The dataset shows no filings at the 2022 midpoint and a peak of nine families in 2024, with 2026 data necessarily partial because publication typically lags filing by around 18 months. Read the most recent year as a floor, not a ceiling.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 22-family set: how filing pace has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Growth is recent and still accelerating
Annual counts run from zero in 2017 through a flat stretch to 2022, then climb to a peak of 9 families in 2024. Because 2022 is the flat midpoint and 2024 is the high point, most of the substantive claim activity in this space is less than three years old — this is an early-stage filing wave, not a mature one.
Pack integration and power control dominate over cell chemistry
H02J (power supply and grid systems) accounts for 13 of the classified records, ahead of H01M (batteries, cells and fuel cells) at 7 and the vehicle-propulsion classes B60K and B60L at 6 and 5 respectively. The tilt toward H02J and the vehicle classes indicates that applicants are claiming how sodium-ion modules connect, balance and interface with a load or grid, more than how the cells themselves are built.
Shares are the percentage of the 22 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Sodium-Ion Battery Modularity and Standardization with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about sodium-ion battery modularity and standardization and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe records anchoring this space
A battery pack arrangement for a vehicle
Describes a battery pack arrangement with a first battery module and a second battery module positioned on opposite sides of a thermal management member, which presents separate thermally conductive surfaces to each module so it can regulate their temperatures independently. The structure lets modules be added or arranged around a shared thermal core rather than each needing its own dedicated cooling path.Filed by Volvo Truck Corporation; published 2021-12-09.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2020074105A1 | A battery pack arrangement for a vehicle | 42 |
| 2 | US20210380001A1 | A battery pack arrangement for a vehicle | 36 |
| 3 | US20260123620A1 | Laser – based targeting and object detection system | 10 |
| 4 | CN121485046A | 一种宽温域钠锂混合储能系统及其控制方法 | 4 |
| 5 | US20260081635A1 | Adaptive, Modular, and Secure Multi-Modal Communication and Computing System with Integrated Environmental Re… | 4 |
| 6 | US12508925B2 | Battery pack arrangement for a vehicle | 2 |
| 7 | US20250309680A1 | Self-Contained, Modular, Intelligent and Resilient Appliance Nanogrid System | 1 |
Citation counts reflect influence within this searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of prior-art weight, 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. Publication numbers are shown where the record carries one (7 of 7 rows); clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three things stand out once the raw counts are set against each other: where the claim density actually sits, who is filing recently, and how citation weight is distributed.
Claims cluster on integration, not chemistry
Nearly twice as many records fall under power supply and grid systems (H02J) as under batteries and cells (H01M). Applicants are securing pack-level and interface claims — balancing, switching, module arrangement — around sodium-ion cells rather than claiming the electrochemistry itself.
The filing wave is under three years old
With zero filings at the 2022 midpoint and a peak of nine in 2024, most of this landscape has been written in the last three publication years. Freedom-to-operate positions taken today are being tested against a still-thin, still-forming body of prior art.
One family design pattern anchors prior art
The two most-cited records in the corpus share a title and design lineage — a vehicle battery-pack arrangement with a shared thermal-management member between two modules. That concentration means new modular-pack filings are very likely to be examined against this specific arrangement.
Filing is US-weighted with a thin international tail
The United States accounts for 10 of the 22 records, with Europe, WIPO/PCT, China, India and Australia splitting the remainder in small numbers. Applicants targeting only a US filing risk leaving the EPO and PCT routes, where competitive coverage is currently thinner, unprotected.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to sodium-ion battery modularity and standardization, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the gate sits
Recent-year momentum is thin across the board — most tracked assignees show zero filings in the latest year, and a couple show a full drop-off from a prior filing. That is consistent with a field where the filing wave is recent but not yet a sustained programme for any single entrant.
Xi'an Thermal Power Research Institute is the one visible mover
Among the tracked assignees, Xi'an Thermal Power Research Institute is the only one showing a filing in the latest year. Everyone else in the recent-momentum set, including Volvo Truck Corporation and Caterpillar, shows zero.
Two individual filers stopped after a single year
Rothschild Leigh M and Pila Energy Inc both show a -100% year-on-year change, meaning a prior filing was not followed up in the latest tracked year. That pattern is typical of exploratory, single-family filings rather than an ongoing programme.
No single assignee has built a deep portfolio yet
With only 22 families spread across vehicle OEMs, research institutes and individual inventors, this is a landscape without an entrenched leader. That leaves room for a well-drafted early filing to set the terms other applicants have to work around.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Xi'an Thermal Power Research Institute Co., Ltd. | 1 | — |
| Volvo Truck Corporation | 0 | — |
| ROTHSCHILD LEIGH M | 0 | -100% |
| SMARTIZER PTY LTD | 0 | — |
| PILA ENERGY INC | 0 | -100% |
| Caterpillar Inc. | 0 | — |
| Weiheng Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| REYNTJENS NICK | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this
The dataset points to a field still being defined at the claim level. Two directions make sense depending on what you need to decide.
Map freedom-to-operate against the thermal-core design pattern
The two most-cited records share a specific architecture — separate modules on opposite sides of a shared thermal management member. Any new modular pack design should be checked against that specific claim structure before filing.
Explore this landscape in EurekaWatch the H02J-heavy filers for integration claims
Because power supply and grid-systems classifications outnumber pure battery classifications, the near-term competitive risk is in interface and balancing claims, not cell chemistry. Track new entrants filing under H02J alongside sodium-ion terms.
Run a custom search in EurekaQuestions practitioners ask about this space
This landscape identifies 22 patent families combining sodium-ion battery terminology with modular pack or standardized cell format language, covering filings from 2015 through mid-2026. That is a small, cross-disciplinary corpus rather than a mature field, and the most recent year is necessarily undercounted because publication typically lags filing by about 18 months. Treat 22 as the current visible floor, not the total eventual size of the space.
Yes, based on the filing trend: activity was flat through the 2022 midpoint and then rose to a peak of 9 families in 2024, the highest year in the dataset. That pattern indicates the filing wave is recent and still building rather than plateauing. Because 2025 and 2026 data will keep filling in as publications catch up, the true growth rate is likely understated in the most recent two years shown.
H02J, covering power supply and grid systems, is the largest single classification with 13 of the classified records, ahead of H01M (batteries, cells and fuel cells) at 7 and the vehicle-propulsion classes B60K and B60L at 6 and 5 respectively. That distribution shows claims are concentrated on how sodium-ion modules integrate, balance and interface with a vehicle or grid load, rather than on the underlying cell chemistry. Anyone drafting new claims in this space should search H02J and the vehicle-propulsion classes as closely as H01M.
The assignee base is fragmented: with only 22 families total and no single dominant repeat filer, entities such as Volvo Truck Corporation, Caterpillar and Xi'an Thermal Power Research Institute all appear but none has built a deep portfolio. Recent-year momentum data shows only one tracked assignee, Xi'an Thermal Power Research Institute, with a filing in the latest year, while several individual filers show a full year-on-year drop-off. This is a landscape without an entrenched leader, which matters more for freedom-to-operate planning than for competitor tracking.
The clearest gaps sit in standardized cell-format interoperability across vendors, grid-interactive balancing that overlaps the H02J classification, cross-chemistry hybrid pack control such as sodium-lithium combinations, and thermal-core sharing designs that extend beyond the two-module arrangement seen in the most-cited records. These are branches with some activity but no dense prior-art cluster yet. A first well-drafted claim in any of these areas would carry more weight than a similar filing in the already-anchored two-module thermal-management pattern.
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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.