- REC Solar Holdings is the latest in Maxeon Solar Technologies’ line of fire with regard to TOPCon technology
- Maxeon has accused REC of infringing on its TOPCon patents and filed a lawsuit in Texas
- The company has already filed a TOPCon patent lawsuit against Canadian Solar
After launching a patent lawsuit against Canada-headquartered Canadian Solar in March 2024, Singapore’s Maxeon Solar Technologies has now accused Norway’s REC Solar Holdings of infringing on its TOPCon patents.
Maxeon has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against REC in the Eastern District of Texas. Its patent lawsuit against Canadian Solar is also filed in the same district. REC has not yet publicly responded to the accusation.
The Norwegian solar cell and module manufacturer is part of India’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). It is primarily into heterojunction (HJT) solar technology, however its N-Peak solar panels are based on TOPCon cells. Earlier this year, RIL offloaded REC’s European polysilicon subsidiary REC Solar Norway to Elkem (see India’s Reliance Industries Offloads REC Solar Norway).
In December 2023, Maxeon announced initiating an investigation of several companies for infringement of its TOPCon solar cell technology related patents in the US, but did not name any company.
The SunPower spin-off touts a global patent portfolio of over 1,650 granted patents and more than 330 pending patent applications that protect its innovations for the Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC), shingled hypercell, and TOPCon technologies.
Philip Shen of Roth believes Maxeon’s strong TOPCon IP portfolio has the potential to cause a disruption in the industry as these ‘predate’ any other TOPCon technology (see Maxeon Alleges Patent Infringement By Canadian Solar).
In a brief statement, Maxeon’s Associate General Counsel Marc Robinson said, “Intellectual property infringement sits alongside injurious dumping and subsidy-driven excess global production capacity as an unfair trade practice that distorts markets and tilts what should be a level playing field for global solar manufacturing. Maxeon strongly supports fair competition and will continue to vigorously enforce the Company’s patent rights in the United States and its other markets.”
Maxeon has already filed patent lawsuits against China’s Tongwei Solar for shingled technology, and against Aiko Solar and its distributor Memodo for the back contact cell architecture (see SunPower Spin-Off Launches Another Patent Lawsuit).
In December 2023, Maxeon expanded its patent dispute against Aiko, filing a request to initiate preliminary injunction proceedings against Eironn Netherlands B.V. (Aiko Energy) and its wholesalers VDH Solar Groothandel B.V. and Libra Energy B.V. in the Hague District Court of the Netherlands. It also issued a cease-and-desist letter to Shanghai Aiko Energy and Aiko Energy Germany.
