Cobalt recycling analysis of patents' data

The patent dataset analyzed is based on search criteria aimed at differentiating patent data regarding worldwide filed applications dealing with Cobalt recycling, and subsequently focusing on NMC battery recycling. Such differentiation is essentially achieved by two different search strategies aimed at retrieving the patent data from the EPO database Patstat (Autumn 2022 ed.), the former being based on the presence of the CPC Y02P10/20 classification code in the search query, while the latter being devoid of the CPC Y02P10/20. The two datasets exclusively based on a list of classification codes w/o keywords can be used as control, to be subsequently compared to results focusing instead on Cobalt in case this element is specified in the search criteria mentioned above, due to its possible presence either in the patent title or in the abstract. The patent applications’ trends can be evaluated worldwide during the last decade (2010 – 2022). Additional information is based on proxies that have been dealt with in the publication regarding the equivalent approach used to look for WEEE/RAEE recycling (see: "WEEE recycling patents' dataset", DOI: 10.17632/4ysw32c9fy.1). Moreover, the inclusion of the CPC “green” classification code Y02P10/20 (see “Rare Earth Elements (REE) recycling analysis of patents' data”, doi: 10.17632/c2293m3yjf), specifically regarding the metal recycling methodologies, determines a consistent increase of the patent documents retrieved without including such classification code in the search query. Interestingly, if the search query is modified by simply replacing the CPC classification code with the IPC/CPC C22B23 code, specifically referring to the production of Cobalt or Nickel, almost 90% of the data are common to both patent collections, even if the C22B23 might be not acknowledged as a “green” classification code. The datasets produced with or without including the CPC Y02P10/20 can undergo further analysis, performed using the Orbit Intelligence patent database (available from Questel) to focus on the NMC batteries recycling. The proxies analyzed in each of these two NMC datasets lead to the conclusion that while the presence of CPC Y02P10/20 in the search query might positively affect the exhaustivity of the Cobalt recycling search, on the other hand the specificity of the NMC search criteria diminishes and therefore some strategy to cleanup false positive results should be taken in consideration.