Q Cells manufacturing facility in Dalton, Georgia
Picture: Hanwha Q Cells
From pv journal Germany
In a evaluation course of initiated by Hanwha Options, the guardian of Hanwha Q Cells, the US Patent Trial and Enchantment Board declared on December 9 that each one contested claims in REC Photo voltaic’s US patent No. 10,749,060 (Patent 060) is just not patentable. It decided that the challenged REC Photo voltaic patent claims had been directed to a well known association of photo voltaic parts inside a photo voltaic module, and did not fulfill the necessities of patentability.
REC challenged Hanwha Options in a patent infringement case filed within the US District Court docket for the District of Delaware in 2020. Court docket judges suspended the dispute in the course of the inter partes evaluation process. In early January, the deadline was prolonged once more.
Q Cells mentioned in a press release that the US determination follows comparable selections concerning REC Photo voltaic’s international patents. Final yr, the Beijing Mental Property Court docket and European Patent Workplace issued favorable rulings for Hanwha Options on a Chinese language patent, 201480038577.X, and a European patent, EP3017520. Each patents are associated to REC Photo voltaic’s 060 patent. Nonetheless, REC Photo voltaic declined to remark when contacted pv journal.
In March 2019, Hanwha Q Cells filed patent infringement complaints in Germany towards Jinko Photo voltaic and REC Group, and adopted up with an identical case towards Longi Photo voltaic. The complaints declare that the businesses unlawfully embody Q Cells’ patented passivation know-how in their very own merchandise. In June 2020, the Düsseldorf regional court docket dominated that the three defendants infringed a part of the German patent. The attraction course of continues to be ongoing.
Hanwha Q Cells has additionally filed patent-related complaints in France, the Netherlands, and the US. The US Court docket of Appeals decided that the contested patent grievance was invalid. The European Patent Workplace, alternatively, confirmed the validity of the passivation tech patent in June 2020, with minor adjustments.
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