The average annual number of applications for NdFeB-related patents in China has increased rapidly. From the perspective of global patent distribution, Japan ranks first in the number of patent applications in the field of NdFeB, with about 3700 items; China ranks second with about 2500 items, followed by the United States and Europe. Up to now, the application of rare earth permanent magnet patent has experienced two peaks: the first appeared around 1987, mainly in Japanese patent applications, during which NdFeB technology made breakthrough progress; the second appeared around 2013, mainly in China and Japan, and the patent focused on the improvement of the composition and process of sintered NdFeB.
Since the beginning of the 1980 s, China has made great progress in the research and production of NdFeB permanent magnet materials after 30 years of development. The average annual number of applications for NdFeB-related patents in China has increased rapidly since the beginning of the 21st century, and the global proportion of total applications has increased from 3.8 in 1985 to 73.9 in 2013 (because patent applications need a certain examination time to be disclosed, the normal disclosure time of patent applications is 18 months from the date of application, so only 2013 data can be counted at present).
domestic enterprises jointly successfully sued Hitachi Metals, but the high-end NdFeB downstream market still has a high entry threshold.
Hitachi Metals uses invalid core patents to impose a patent blockade on the field of sintered NdFeB, requiring enterprises without its authorization not to produce and sell sintered NdFeB, resulting in a large number of Chinese enterprises unable to export sintered NdFeB and unable to upgrade the industrial structure. Hitachi Metals is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is the world's largest production and sales of sintered NdFeB enterprises. Through mergers and acquisitions and self-research and development, Hitachi Metals currently has more than 600 rare earth sintered NdFeB patents. Hitachi Metal takes the form of a license to license the licensee in the area covered by its patents to produce and sell sintered NdFeB magnets under Hitachi Metal's related patents.
However, China has not passed its patent application, so Chinese NdFeB companies can produce and sell sintered NdFeB domestically, but cannot sell it abroad.
more than 200 NdFeB enterprises in China, which produce almost 80% of the global output of NdFeB. Hitachi Metals has only authorized eight Chinese companies such as Zhongke Sanhuan to have the right to use the patent for sintered NdFeB. Other unauthorized companies are subject to the patent blockade of Hitachi Metals and cannot enter high-end markets such as the United States and Europe. The overall production capacity of NdFeB magnets is low-end, and the industrial structure cannot be upgraded.
Zhongbei magnetic and other domestic enterprises set up a rare earth alliance, filed a lawsuit against Hitachi metals, and finally decided that its two core patents were invalid.
In August 2013, 7 companies including Shenyang Zhongbei Magnetic Technology Co., Ltd. established the Rare Earth Alliance to fight back against Hitachi Metal's patent blockade. On August 11, 2014, the rare earth alliance filed an invalidation procedure against Hitachi metal core patent 6491765 and 6537385 (it was also two patents in the "337 investigation case" initiated by 29 enterprises including 4 Chinese rare earth permanent magnet enterprises in the United States International Trade Commission in August 2012) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on February 8, 2016, the patent trial and appeal committee of the United States Patent and Trademark Office ruled that some of the claims of the two U.S. patents owned by Hitachi Metal were "obvious relative to the prior art" in the two-party review proceedings in the case. invalid. The victory of the lawsuit is expected to break Hitachi Metal's patent blockade of Chinese enterprises, cut patent fees, and boost domestic export demand. The leading enterprises in the process of internationalization of the downstream market will still maintain their leading position. The opening of the export market brings unequal opportunities to domestic rare earth magnetic materials enterprises, and the first and second echelon enterprises that have occupied the leading position are still benefited to a large extent. There are three reasons:
one is the customer threshold: leading enterprises have been granted patents for many years, have rich overseas marketing experience and have accumulated considerable customer resources. Overseas customers have strict requirements for product quality, stability, technology, environmental protection and safety, etc. It usually takes a long time (2-3 years or more) to pass the qualification certification of overseas customers. Enterprises that have just entered the market have very limited advantages compared with leading enterprises that have been cultivated for many years;
is raw materials: in the case of limiting factors in the supply of raw materials, large enterprises with good cash flow and upstream customer relationships are more likely to obtain a stable supply of raw materials, and at the same time, due to the large demand factors have a certain price say, and the scale of relatively small enterprises to form resource suppression.
is technical barriers: foreign market demand is mostly concentrated in high-end areas, such as consumer electronics, automotive EPS and new energy vehicle motors, high-end industrial machinery, etc., lack of technology accumulation, long-term supply of low-end market enterprises can not meet the needs of high-end customers.
