太陽能光電產業的生產與創新

Abstract

本研究以美國專利商標局在1966-2006年期間所核准的太陽光電專利資料，分析全球太陽能產業的生產與創新。我們首先探討太陽能光電技術的發展歷程，並將太陽光電技術發展分作四個時期，分析全球主要太陽光電國家與廠商的專利表現。此外，我們還以全球前二十大太陽光電生產廠商為研究對象，分析其生產與創新的模式並討論他們將專利運用在實際生產面的效率性。 我們發現全球太陽能光電專利分別為太陽光電技術的先進國-美國、日本與德國，以及後進國-韓國、台灣與中國所擁有，其中美國與日本兩國的技術能力更是遠遠超過其他國家。我們還觀察全球前二十大太陽光電生產廠商的生產與創新行為，發現依照廠商的創新模式可將其分成三類，即(1)有生產且創新表現多，(2)有生產但創新表現少，(3)有生產但無任何創新表現。最後，針對我們台灣太陽光電產業生產與創新的情況進行分析，並提出建言。

This study analyzes the production and innovation in the global photovoltaic industry by use of the patenting data in the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) between 1966 and 2006. First, we discuss the development in the field of photovoltaic technology by separating time into four durations, and then analyze the patenting performances of the world’s leading countries and firms. In addition, we take the world's top 20 largest solar manufacturers as the object of study to analyze how they produce and innovate and discuss the efficiency of applying their patent into the actual production. We find that the global photovoltaic patents belong to the forerunners - the United States, Japan and Germany, and latecomers - South Korea, Taiwan and China, with the U.S. and Japan two technical abilities are far more than other countries. By analyzing the world's top 20 largest solar manufacturers’ production and innovation, we also find they can be divided into three categories, according the way they innovate and produce, namely：(1) perform outstandingly in both production and patenting, (2) outstanding production with few patents, (3) excellent production but no patent. Finally, we focus on the situation of Taiwan PV industry and offer some suggestions for future development.