Looking at Patent Law-The Impact of Electrochemical Science and Engineering on the Patent Literature

In this installment of the “Looking at Patent Law” series, we illustrate a high-level perspective of the impact of electrochemical science and engineering on innovation and technology development, as evidenced by inclusion within the patent literature. We searched the USPTO patent data base for the past thirty-one years using commercially available software. The search was limited to U.S. patents and included the Boolean search string was “electrochem* OR electroly*” for U.S. patents issued within the date range of 01/01/1991 to 12/31/2021. Over the past ten years “electrochemical” patents represent nearly 5% of “all” issued patents. The top assignees of the “electrochemical” patents attend and/or present at biannual ECS meetings and publish in ECS journals. Notable top inventors of “electrochemical” patents include: 1) Dr. Shumpei Yamazaki with over 800 patents, 2) Dr. Adam Heller, the inventor of the electrochemical-based glucose monitor, and 3) Dr. Esther Takeuchi, inventor of the implantable cardiac defibrillator.