The main source of lithium now is extraction from subsurface brines, mostly in South America (e.g., under salt flats in Bolivia, which is a major producer). Demand is expected to outstrip what these countries can supply as the EV and grid storage markets grow, plus countries with no lithium brines want in on the action, so there are various efforts to find economically competitive approaches to extracting lithium from other sources. Both the story you linked and this new patent are attempts to do that, but harnessing from different sources (seawater and lithium-rich clay, respectively), and using what appear to be unrelated chemical processes.
Just a nit about your first sentence: Australia produces about double what South America does, and most of their lithium comes from processing spodumene. I think a few years your statement would have been correct, but things have been changing very rapidly!
https://newatlas.com/materials/kaust-lithium-phosphate-llto-...
(HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27444976)