Carbon One: long-lasting battery technology

The climate crisis is not just a source of gloom. It also presents opportunities. In the Paris Agreement, the problem is set out with urgency and clear targets, such as deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and a quick transition to low-carbon systems. Those goals serve as a blueprint.

In this Innovating for Impact mini-series, we meet three small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are following the blueprint. All finalists in the WIPO Global Awards 2025, they demonstrate how innovation and intellectual property (IP) strategy can work in lockstep to scale climate solution technologies into sustainable businesses.

We recently profiled Baniql, a green-nickel company that has successfully woven IP into its business plan. Here, we cast a light on Carbon One, a battery company with much to teach innovators about IP awareness, patent research and trade secrets.

Silicon-carbon anode battery innovation

China dominates the global battery market. In 2024 it was home to six of the world’s 10 biggest battery producers, and today the country makes more than 75 percent of batteries sold globally. Carbon One was founded in 2022 and, though small, it hopes to make an outsized difference in this growing industry.

From its headquarters in Quzhou, China, the company is developing next-generation battery anodes. It produces a range of materials, from natural and synthetic graphite to hard carbon, lithium metal and, crucially, silicon-based anodes, making it one of the few battery companies with an end-to-end anode supply chain.

Silicon anodes promise a big leap in capacity but they swell and degrade quickly. Carbon One’s engineers solved this problem with a hybrid design. The company’s flagship material is a silicon-carbon composite anode coated with a special polymer layer that stabilizes the surface.

Professor Du Ning, Carbon One’s president, says the design dramatically increases capacity. In tests, it holds about 10 times the energy of a graphite anode. “With this material, smartphone batteries could exceed 7000 mAh and electric vehicles (EVs) could gain more than 30 percent in driving range,” he says. The payoff is longer-lasting devices and further travel without increasing battery size.

Carbon One also tackled silicon’s downside: expansion stress. Instead of bulk silicon, it uses nano-scale silicon particles embedded in a carbon matrix to buffer the expansion.

The extra polymer coating (the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer) forms a stable, conductive film that protects the anode during each charge cycle. Professor Ning notes that the technology has now been scaled to production and is being tested in EV batteries, grid storage systems and high-end electronics.

Carbon One’s IP strategy to protect efficient battery technology

Carbon One treats IP as a strategic asset. The company conducts exhaustive patent research to ensure freedom to operate, identifying any battery patents that could pose conflicts and designing its technology around them. Today, Carbon One has a large IP portfolio comprising more than 350 patent applications filed in multiple countries, plus related trademarks and copyrights .

“IP development is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort,” Professor Ning says. Carbon One embeds IP awareness in its company culture by encouraging employees to innovate and protect ideas through cross-department brainstorming, regular patent-review meetings and even cash rewards for new inventions.

For each new idea, the team assesses the risk of reverse-engineering to decide whether to file a patent application or keep it secret. “If a technology is easy to replicate, we may keep it as a trade secret. But any performance edge in the finished product, we patent.” In practice, that means the company attempts to patent any competitive advantage visible to users, while underlying processes may remain confidential.

Carbon One also carefully times its filings. The company files early in each key market planned for rollout and in regions where competitors operate, ensuring broad protection before rivals can stake their claims. Carbon One is also using the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) to explore patenting options in various countries. The company filed six PCT applications since 2024, all name Professor Ning as one of the inventors – this is the most recent one.

Strong IP also underpins Carbon One’s partnerships and fundraising. “Our IP sets the ground rules when we team up with battery makers and manufacturing partners,” Professor Ning says.

The company uses non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and contracts to spell out who owns any jointly developed IP, to protect confidentiality and to define warranties and liabilities. Getting those IP terms right upfront helps to protect Carbon One’s technology and builds confidence with partners.

Lessons for innovators: prioritize key markets, patents and trade secrets

A lot can be learnt from Carbon One’s approach to IP. First, innovators should treat it as a foundational investment and not an afterthought.

“Startups need to secure protection for new technologies early,” says Professor Ning. By doing so, they can not only help to prevent infringement but also make themselves more attractive to investors.

Like Baniql, Carbon One has also successfully woven IP into the core of its business. The company decides between patents and trade secrets based on how easily a competitor could copy the finished product, while also tailoring its international patent filings to priority markets – in this case leading battery markets.

Carbon One demonstrates that uniting innovation with strategic IP management can lead to real climate impact. And its ongoing story proves that, with the right technology and a sound IP strategy, startups can tackle climate challenges and scale solutions quickly.