Guelph’s Canadian Solar is being sued by an American solar company for patent infringement.
California-based Solaria Corporation filed a patent lawsuit in April and recently added a complaint with the International Trade Commission.
Solaria contends that Canadian Solar stole some of its patented technology, implementing it shortly after a company representative visited Solaria’s facility in California.
Canadian Solar denies all claims and has countersued, asking U.S. patent court to dismiss the claims.
“Canadian Solar continues to willfully misappropriate Solaria’s intellectual property. It’s unfair that an infringing company can swoop in, as Canadian Solar has done here, use our patented inventions, and threaten American jobs. We filed the ITC complaint because Canadian Solar deems itself above the law, and its anti-competitive behavior must be remedied,” Solaria recently posted on its website.
Canadian Solar has countersued with claims requesting that the court declare that none of the products in question infringe the Solaria patents, that Solaria withheld key evidence from the U.S. Patent Office when seeking its patents and the asserted claims both invalid and unenforceable.
“Canadian Solar will continue to vigorously defend these lawsuits, while the Company continues to focus its energy on developing superior product and bringing innovation to the market,” Canadian Solar posted on its website.
“Asserting the same family of patents against the same limited number of products (HiDM and HiDM5) in a different forum does not make Solaria's claims any less flawed.”
The lawsuit is in relation to technology in high density shingled solar panel cells.
None of the claims or counterclaims have been proven in court.
