This work implements a new patent-based analysis framework to gain a deeper insight into the individual production processes and their mutual interactions, in order to separate the technological developments within them e.g., active material and battery system patents, from the production-related process patents. This study aims to narrow the gap between implicit and explicit knowledge across the LIB production value chain in order to help companies and policy makers involved in the LIB industry to identify potential avenues for further development.
The following sub-questions will be addressed, with a first focus on a quantitative analysis and a subsequent qualitative analysis:

1. State of the art – Technology and regional perspective: At which point, throughout the various manufacturing steps, are the strengths and weaknesses of the value chain in terms of technological maturity and innovation potential, as well as how is expertise distributed across the selected regions of the world?
2. Innovation potential: Which steps in the value chain offer the greatest potential for innovation and strong protection of the intellectual property created?
3. Patent quality: To what extent do patent portfolio sizes of different regions correlate to their respective level of competitiveness?

To answer our research questions, patent data between 1992 and 2022 was gathered and classified according to value chain-associated keywords. The patent quality was determined by calculating the mean eigenvector centralities for each region from the generated process-dependent networks.