This chart from a Thomson-Reuters report on patenting activity in alternative energy compares 1997-1999 with 2006-2008. EP is patents submitted to the European Patent Office. The most obvious trends are the amazing growth in Chinese activity (and to a lesser extent American, Korean, and British interest) and a swing towards wind energy innovation. The report also splits patenting among origins in large companies, small companies and the academic-government sector. Chinese and Japanese universities completely dominate the latter sector. And almost all of the activity is very recent.
A second report reviews patenting for related technologies:
Here Japan is the leader and has greatly increased its activity. China has also dramatically stepped up R&D but remains in 3rd place. Chinese universities again have a plurality of the academic-government R&D but are less dominant than for in the solar-wind-marine energy nexus:
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