Solaria files new lawsuit, Canadian Solar continues to fight back

Solaria Corporation, which is suing Canadian Solar Inc (NASDAQ:CSIQ) for allegedly infringing a US patent, last week unveiled it had filed additional claims against its competitor, this time with the US International Trade Commission (ITC).

At the very end of March, Solaria filed a lawsuit in a US court against Canadian Solar, claiming that the latter infringes a patent regarding a process for separating photovoltaic (PV) strips from solar cells for use in "shingled" modules. The US company says its competitor studied its high-density module (HDM) technology back in 2014 when they were negotiating a licensing deal that never got signed. Five years later, Canadian Solar introduced HiDM shingled modules, which it began to advertise and sell in the US.

Solaria's ITC complaint was filed on September 15, 2020. What the company seeks is an exclusion order that would prevent Canadian Solar from importing infringing products into the US.

“Despite our pending District Court case, Canadian Solar continues to willfully misappropriate Solaria’s intellectual property,” commented Solaria's founder and director Suvi Sharma.

In a countersuit, Canadian Solar claims that none of the products at issue in the case infringe the Solaria patents and that the latter withheld key evidence from the US Patent Office when seeking its patents.

“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,” Canadian Solar said in a statement, adding that it will continue to defend the lawsuits.

The ITC is expected to start an investigation in October.

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