Chinese module maker Trina Solar has filed a patent infringement complaint in US District Court for the District of Delaware lawsuit against three unspecified units from rival Canadian Solar.
Canadian Solar has revealed that the patent litigation concerns two unspecified U.S. patents held by Trina related to the TOPCon solar panel technology.
“Canadian Solar respects and takes its own and third party intellectual property rights very seriously,” said Adam Walters, Americas general counsel for Canadian Solar’s modules and system solutions. “In our view, this is a frivolous lawsuit and we expect the court will find that our patented TOPCon technology does not infringe the patents that Trina claims.”
Canadian Solar has recently faced similar patent claims in the United States. In March, Singapore-based Maxeon filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the company in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Maxeon previously sued Canadian Solar in Japan for patent infringement in 2020. In the lawsuit, Maxeon alleged that Canadian Solar Japan infringed Japanese patent No. JP6642841B2, which is related to its shingled solar modules. The two companies reached a settlement in April 2022.
Additionally, PV manufacturer Solaria has filed three different patent infringement claims against the company in the past, all related to the process of separating photovoltaic strips from solar cells for use in shingles.
Earlier this month, Trina Solar filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging that Runergy and Adani Green Energy unlawfully imported and sold projects that infringed on its patents for TOPCon solar cells.
Trina Solar has more than 2,000 patents, including for TOPCon and heterojunction (HJT) solar cell types. It is currently developing a 5 GW manufacturing base in Wilmer, Texas.
This content is copyrighted and may not be reused. If you would like to collaborate with us and reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.