On June 23, 2026 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent that is not about a cathode coating or an electrolyte additive. It is about how you hold an electrode lead still while you weld it to a bus bar. Titled "Battery module, battery pack, and vehicle," the patent is assigned to LG Energy Solution, Ltd. and carried at US12665264B2. The label first: this is a granted patent, not a published application. The claims printed in it are the ones an examiner allowed, and they define what the patent now fences off. With that fixed, the question worth asking is what granted claim 1 actually covers.

In plain terms, the claim is directed to a module-assembly geometry built around a single problem: when a welding jig presses an electrode lead against a bus bar to weld the two together, something has to push back, or the lead deflects and the weld suffers. Claim 1 recites a plurality of battery cells, each with an electrode lead; a bus bar with a lead welding portion that is adhered to those leads; and a bus-bar frame that does three things at once. The frame has a lead-insertion hole through which the electrode lead passes, an insertion space into which part of the bus bar is seated, and — the limitation that carries the invention — a jig support configured to support a welding jig that is configured to press the electrode lead, in a direction opposite to a pressing direction of the welding jig. The claim then adds a spatial constraint: the lead-insertion hole and the bus-bar insertion space are spaced from each other in a direction perpendicular to the jig's pressing direction. The granted scope, in other words, is not "a way to weld a lead" in the abstract; it is this particular frame-and-support arrangement, with the support positioned to counter the jig and the two openings offset perpendicular to the press.

A battery module comprising: a plurality of battery cells each comprising an electrode lead; a bus bar comprising a lead welding portion adhered to the electrode lead of each of the plurality of battery cells; and a bus bar frame comprising a lead insertion hole through which the electrode lead passes, an insertion space into which at least a portion of the bus bar is inserted, and a jig support configured to support a welding jig that is configured to press the electrode lead, in a direction opposite to a pressing direction of the welding jig, wherein the lead insertion hole and the insertion space are spaced from each other in a direction perpendicular to the pressing direction of the welding jig.— Battery module, battery pack, and vehicle, US12665264B2

The CPC class puts this in the module, not the cell

The classification is informative here. The granted patent's lead class is H01M 50/516 — the subclass for interconnections of bus-bar terminals within the casing or framework of a battery module — sitting alongside B60L 50/64, the class for electrically-propelled vehicles powered by storage batteries. That pairing places the patent squarely at the module-assembly-to-EV-pack seam. The claimed contribution is mechanical and structural: where the jig support sits, how the bus-bar frame is shaped, how the openings are offset. It is not classified in the H01M 4/ active-material or H01M 10/05 electrolyte territory, because the claim says nothing about chemistry. The placement is consistent with the disclosure, which frames the goal as improving welding reliability between the electrode lead and the bus bar while reducing manufacturing costs — a fabrication-yield problem at the pack-build stage, not a cell-performance one.

Reading the dependent claims shows how the granted family narrows from there. Claim 2 adds a jig-extending portion on the bus bar; claim 3 adds a frame-insertion portion with an inward space that receives the jig support; claims 4 and 5 specify a protruding portion of the bus bar with either a through-slit or an insertion groove for the end of the electrode lead; claim 6 has the jig support contact the lead directly, with claims 7 and 8 adding a fixing slit or fixing groove on a protruding portion of the support; and claim 9 ties the insertion space to a recess in the outer surface of the frame over which the bent lead overlaps. Claims 10 and 11 then carry the module up a level — a battery pack comprising at least one such module, and a vehicle comprising at least one such module. That last pair is what connects the H01M 50/516 module claim to the B60L 50/64 vehicle classification: the granted scope reaches from the bus-bar geometry up to the EV pack that contains it.

Where it lands against LG Energy Solution's same-day grants

Read against the company's own June 23 grant run, the hero is the assembly-and-welding member of a cluster that otherwise spreads across the cell. The records nearest to it are the ones that also touch the electrode lead and the welding process. US12665436B2, "Device for charging and discharging battery cell and method for charging and discharging battery cell using the same," claims a pair of jigs that fix the electrode leads, each jig with first and second blocks that press opposite surfaces of a lead and an interval-adjusting member between them — a jig-and-lead clamping arrangement on the formation side that rhymes directly with the hero's jig-support idea. US12665269B2, "Electrode assembly including electrode lead coupling unit coupled by adhesion portion and spot welding and pouch-shaped battery cell including the same," claims an electrode lead split into a first lead coupled to the tabs and a second lead coupled to the first through a coupling portion that uses both an adhesion portion and a spot-welding portion — again a lead-joining structure, here inside the pouch cell.

One step out, the cluster moves into cell construction and pack thermal design, where the classification leaves H01M 50/516. US12665245B2, "Battery cell and battery module including the same," claims a cell whose electrode lead carries a protective member whose size varies with the lead's temperature — a lead-protection feature, but a thermally responsive one rather than a welding-jig geometry. US12665260B2, "Separator for lithium secondary batteries with improved heat resistance," claims a separator with a phenolic-resin heat-resistance layer — pure cell-internal construction. US12665226B2, "Secondary battery and manufacturing method of the same," claims a jelly-roll cell with a reference electrode threaded through the case and cap assembly. And US12665235B2, "Battery pack and device including the same," claims a pack with a heat sink and heat-transfer member beneath the modules and an insulating member at the heat-sink end — pack-level thermal management rather than interconnection geometry.

Across the cluster the throughline is the path from the electrode lead outward: how the lead is clamped during formation, how it is joined to itself and to the bus bar, how it is protected, and how the assembled modules are cooled. The newly granted hero is the one that fences off the welding-jig support geometry at the bus-bar frame — the structure that backs the lead while it is welded — and the only one in the group classified in H01M 50/516 / B60L 50/64. What it claims, on the face of the granted record, is that specific frame-with-jig-support arrangement and the offset between its lead and bus-bar openings; the dependent claims and the pack-and-vehicle claims define how far that granted scope extends.