According to industry sources, on March 25th local time, Maxeon Solar Technologies (hereinafter referred to as Maxeon), a subsidiary of TCL Central (002129. SZ), a leading silicon wafer company, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Atsu (688472. SH, NASDAQ: CSIQ) in the Eastern District of Texas, accusing Atsu of infringing on Maxeon's TOPCon solar cell technology patent.
On March 27th, a reporter from First Financial called Atlas as an investor, and relevant personnel from the securities department of the company replied, "The company has not received any relevant legal proceedings, and as of now, the company's production capacity and orders in the United States are operating normally. If the news is true, the company will announce it publicly, and all subsequent official announcements and disclosures shall prevail."
According to Qu Xiaohua, former Chairman of Atlas, the company has layout in TOPCon, heterojunction, and BC technology, among which TOPCon's 30GW battery capacity has reached production and efficiency. TOPCon components are expected to account for over 70% of the company's planned component shipments in 2024.
The reporter noticed that in 2023, shortly after returning to A, Atlas announced the construction of a 5GW component factory project and a 5GW battery cell project in Texas and Indiana, USA.
As of now, Atlas has established a 5GW N-type TOPCon photovoltaic module factory in Meskey, Texas, USA. The factory has officially started production in 2023 and has recently started delivering products.
In addition, according to the announcement released by the company on October 31, 2023, regarding the investment in the construction of an annual production of 5GW high-efficiency N-type battery cells in the United States, the company plans to further enhance the competitiveness of its finished components in the US market and increase its market share based on global strategic development and overseas production capacity planning needs. The company plans to continue to expand its overseas N-type battery cell production capacity on the basis of investment in US component production capacity, and launch the plan for the annual production of 5GW high-efficiency N-type battery cells by the American company. It is expected to be put into production by the end of 2025.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time Maxeon has been accused of patent infringement by other photovoltaic companies, and it is not the first time that Artes has been "involved".
In 2020, Maxeon filed a lawsuit against a Japanese subsidiary of Atlas for infringing on its tile stacking component technology, demanding compensation of 10 million yen. In June 2022, the two sides reached a settlement and Artes temporarily withdrew from the Japanese tile market until the second quarter of 2025.
Last year, Maxeon sued two major Chinese photovoltaic companies, Tongwei Co., Ltd. (600438. SH) and Aixu Co., Ltd. (600732. SH). As of now, the patent lawsuit has not been finalized.
On the evening of June 15, 2023, TCL Central announced that it had received a notice from Maxeon to file a patent infringement lawsuit against Tongwei Solar (Hefei) Co., Ltd. and its subsidiary Tongwei Solar GmbH due to patent infringement.
On November 18, 2023, Aixu Group announced that its overseas subsidiaries Aiko Energy Germany GmbH and Solarlab Aiko Europe GmbH had received litigation documents served by the Mannheim District Court in Germany. Maxeon has filed a lawsuit in Germany against Aixu AG's two German subsidiaries for developing and selling ABC component products of the "A450-MAH54Mb" model, which used Maxeon Solar's European patent number EP2297788B1 without permission.