This research report provides an overview of the patent landscape in the emerging Organic Photovoltaic industry. It is an invaluable guide to technology developers, patent departments, licensing departments, and business developers who want to develop technology and patent strategies.

"The Organic Photovoltaic industry is developing fast, with more than 80% of the patents being filed since 2000"

The rapid technological progress being made by organic photovoltaic (OPV) companies is impressive. Over the past 12 months companies such Konarka, Solarmer, and Heliatek have steadily increased cell efficiencies that now stands at about 8.5%. Much of the rapid gains has been obtained with devices made using solution processible materials rather than devices made using vacuum deposited materials. This is in stark contrast to the OLED sector where small molecule materials provide the highest efficiency and have been widely adopted for devices. Having achieved very respectable power conversion efficiencies OPV companies are now focusing their resources on commercialsiation of the technology. Continuing technological innovation is still critical to the long-term success of these companies, and an observable growth in innovation on process technologies, materials systems and novel device architectures can been found in the patent landscape, as companies explore options for improved device performance and lower manufacturing costs.

This research report aims to answers key questions that include

• How many patents are being filed each year?
• Who has filed early IP?
• Which companies are active filing Organic Photovoltaic patents?
• What areas of innovation are being pursued?
• How are companies shifting the innovation portfolio?
• Which industry sector is the most active?
• Who has filed the most IP and in what areas of innovation?
• What patents are reaching their expiry date?
• What materials systems are being pursued?
• What devcie architectures are being pursued?
• What process technologies are being pursued?

Who should buy this report?

This report is aimed at the researcher who initially needs a comprehensive overview of the patent landscape, and once they have understood the comprehensive overview need to conduct more detailed research on key areas of interest. This report is aimed at the researcher who wants to spend more time concentrating on analysis and understanding the patent landscape rather than searching for relevant patents. This report will enable you to identify the leading organisations filing Organic Photovoltaic patents, when they filed, what patents have been granted, what are the main technology areas where filings have occurred, and which industry sectors are the most active.

What does this reports offer?

This report offers a comprehensive overview of the patent landscape enabling you to easily identify key areas of interest. The accompanying patent dataset enables you to drill down to the next level of detail. The patent data is organised in a pivot table and pivot chart enabling you to perform your own analysis. All patents provide links to the online espacenet website where you can read more details on patents of interest.

How good is the data?

cintelliq has been providing organic semiconductor patent data since 2004, this includes quarterly patent reports, special topic reports, and supplying custom specific datasets.

What is provided in the patent dataset?

The patent dataset provides summary details of each patent, using this dataset and the inbuilt Pivot table facility of Excel it is possible to perform further analysis of the patents. This dataset allows the user to drill down into the dataset, and then to read detailed patent data on espacenet.

Each patent record contains more than 20 bibliographic and classification data fields:

The bibliographic data is derived from the front sheet of the patent:-

• Patent / Publication No | Assignee | Title | Abstract | Publication Date | Publication Year | Publication Qtr | Patent Status | PTO | Priority Country | Priority Year | Academic | Inventor (first only) | International Class (primary) | ECLA (primary) | US Class (primary) | Document Kind | Corrections

The cintelliq classification data fields provide further detail to enable the patent dataset to be grouped and clustered into material systems, device architectures, processes, and more. There are six fields of classifications :-

• Material systems
• Innovation group
• Four further refinements of previous classification type

Each patent record contains links to espacenet and google who provide more detailed patent information

In addition each patent has a direct link to the EPO espacenet website where more detailed information can be found on each patent. US granted patents also have links to Google patent data.