Who invents what, and where?
Understand patents from around the world. See how they connect. Sorted by industry and explained in plain words, with the source of every fact.
Browse batteries and fuel cells · electric vehicle propulsion · refrigeration and heat pumps · wind turbines
An example patent drawingEvery patent starts with drawings like this one — a battery pack with its cooling plate, drawn the way patent offices require.
How YouGotIdeas works
Where the patents come from
Records come from the European Patent Office's official data service, which covers filings from offices worldwide — Europe, the US, China, Japan, Korea and more. Each record keeps its publication number, retrieval date and a link to the original, so you can check it yourself in the office's free search.
How patents are sorted
Every patent is placed in industries using the codes patent offices themselves assign, from the classification shared by the European and US offices. That is how you can browse batteries, heat pumps or wind turbines and see which companies file the most patents in each.
What each patent page shows
A patent page brings together the title, abstract, applicants, inventors, dates and the first drawing as published. Where available it also shows related patents in the same family and plain-English readings, each clearly labelled so you know what came from the patent office and what did not.
See how technologies connect: start at battery cooling and follow its links: the areas it builds on, shares mechanisms with or shares companies with. Built from European Patent Office records today, with each patent's worldwide family. What our data covers, and its limits. Want to see who files the most? Start from the list of applicant companies, or look up inventions country by country.
Patents in plain words
The six things worth knowing before you open any patent page. Each is a short chapter of our guide.
The publication number: who, which, what
A number such as EP 4822876 A1 has three parts. The two letters say which office published it: EP is the European Patent Office, US the United States, CN China, JP Japan, KR South Korea, DE Germany, and WO the World Intellectual Property Organization for international applications.
Decode a publication number →Patents, utility models, designs and international applications
An invention patent (a "utility patent" in the US) protects how something works. It is examined before grant and lasts at most 20 years from the filing date, if renewal fees are paid.
Patent, utility model or design? →The dates, in order
Priority date: the first filing anywhere for this invention. Later filings in other countries within 12 months can claim it, so it is the date that counts when deciding what was new.
Which date matters →Families: one invention, many documents
Companies file the same invention in several countries. All the documents that share the same priority filings form a patent family: for example a Japanese application, its US and Chinese counterparts, a European patent and a PCT application.
How families work →Classification codes: which industry
Every patent is sorted into the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), shared by the European and US offices and used by many others. A code such as H01M 10/613 reads from broad to narrow.
Reading a CPC code →Is it still in force?
A patent only protects in the countries where it was granted and is kept alive. The legal-status events published by each office (grant, lapse for non-payment, withdrawal, revocation) show where it stands.
Check if it is still in force →
Common questions
Is a patent application a patent?
No. An application (kind A) is a request for protection, published about 18 months after the first filing. It only becomes a patent if the office grants it, often with narrower claims. Many applications are never granted.
What is the difference between EP and WO?
EP is a European patent application or patent from the European Patent Office, which after grant is validated country by country. WO is an international (PCT) application from WIPO: one filing that keeps the option open in more than 150 countries, but not a patent itself.
How long does a patent last?
At most 20 years from the filing date, as long as renewal fees are paid. Utility models usually last 10 years and US design patents 15 years from grant. Medicines can get up to five extra years through a supplementary protection certificate.
Who owns a patent: the applicant or the inventor?
Usually the applicant, often the inventors' employer. Inventors are always named. Ownership can change later through sales or mergers, which the published record does not always show.
Where does YouGotIdeas get its data?
From the European Patent Office's Open Patent Services: bibliographic records, families, legal events and drawings. Links between industries are calculated by YouGotIdeas, and plain-English readings are written by AI from the title and abstract and labelled as such.
How to read what you find
- Source record
Stated by a patent office, shown with its source and when it was retrieved.
- Derived
Calculated by YouGotIdeas from those records, with the method shown.
- AI interpretation
A plain-English reading generated from cited facts; never an official statement.