WTRS Energy Harvesting IP Analysis Report

Report Title: Energy Harvesting for Wireless Sensor Networks, a WTRS IP and Patent Report
Product Code: WT102609EHPR
Published: November 2009
Report Stats: 439 pages; 12 tables & figures; 101 patents
Format: Electronic PDF Document
Price: $3,500

Overview:

Many wireless sensor network applications are not addressable with products requiring access to mains power. Thus tuning the power requirements of the wireless sensor network components to minimize battery power use is a priority for many companies. Energy scavenging or harvesting technologies are also a topic of intense research effort and in combination with improvements in power consumption in wireless semiconductor devices, a class of solutions is emerging which eliminates the requirements for either battery power or any other external power connection instead operating on power generated by extracting energy from the surrounding environment.

This report reviews intellectual property holdings of companies participating in energy harvesting markets and also wireless sensor networks optimized for energy harvesting. The report issues surrounding the adoption of wireless sensor networks powered by energy harvesting technologies. In this market sector, the fundamental intellectual property is owned by EnOcean GmbH. EnOcean GmbH is a German technology company that develops energy harvesting technologies, energy-efficient wireless sensor network technologies operating with these energy harvesting devices, and technology products that leverage the integration between the energy harvesting and RF technologies.

Executive Summary

This report presents, analyzes, and reviews the intellectual property holdings of companies developing energy harvesting technologies, wireless communications, and sensor technologies optimized for operation using energy harvested in the ambient environment. The largest and most fundamental holdings in this area are owned by EnOcean GmbH and are realized in practice as EnOcean technology. The EnOcean protocol integrates a very energy-efficient wireless networking communication protocol with advanced energy harvesting techniques.

EnOcean’s intellectual property management activity began in 2001, coincident with the start of the company. Since then, the company has produced over 40 patents and applications. Three patents were assigned to EnOcean by Siemens AG after the startup spun out of Siemens. The other patents are predominantly authored by Frank Schmidt, the company’s CTO and one of the five founders of EnOcean.

The issues surrounding intelectual property protection activities of EnOcean in this market are important to participants in the sector, even those developing product with alternate technology.

Using only publicly available information, gathered from public patent sources, and filing information, this report reviews EnOcean and its alliance activity, summarizes the EnOcean wireless technology, analyzes EnOcean intellectual property holdings as well as activities by individual inventors at EnOcean.

Table of Contents

Figures and Tables

1. Competitive WSN Protocol Specifications

2. The EnOcean Wireless Standard

3. IP Choices in the Development Cycle

4. Inventor Analysis of EnOcean Patents

5. US Patent Applications Filed by EnOcean

6. US Patents Owned by EnOcean

7. Non-US Patents Owned by EnOcean

8. Greenpeak Worldwide Patent Holdings

9. Perpetuum Worldwide Patent Holdings

10. Cymbet U.S. IP Holdings

11. AdaptivEnergy Worldwide Patent Holdings

12. Micropelt Worldwide Patent Holdings

Energy Harvesting for Wireless Sensor Networks, a WTRS IP and Patent Report

Report Details

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