Hybrid cars will determine the future of Hyundai Motor Company

For HMC to continuously grow and develop new industries, it needs to reduce its exposure to patent dispute risks and preempt future competitive factors.

IPnomics analyzed HMC’s technologies registered most frequently and whose registrations sharply increased in the past 3 years, and picked the ‘top 6 future technologies.

As HMC purchased only 38 patents in the past 10 years, with many purchased from its affiliates, their efforts have not yet been very meaningful. Accordingly, we conducted a cross analysis of frequently registered technologies and technologies registered with a sharply increased frequency, and picked the top 6 future technologies.

As a result, many technologies were related to environment-friendly hybrid cars, such as engine valve control, hybrid engine control and exhaust gas management.

Among the future technologies, HMC’s patent competitiveness was vulnerable in the ‘hybrid engine selection’ segment. In this segment HMC has only 34 patents, relatively fewer than its main competitors such as Toyota (256), Honda (200), Ford (79) and Volkswagen (67).

As NPEs have 60 patents, about twice as many as HMC’s, there is a high dispute risk. Also, in the ‘hybrid engine control’ segment, another core hybrid car technology, HMC has 24 patents, outnumbered only by Toyota (53).

IP competitiveness in the smart car and environment-friendly hybrid car segments will determine the future of HMC.