Chinese conglomerate GCL-Poly has reached a ‘mutually agreeable’ resolution to an intellectual property (IP) lawsuit filed last September (Sept. 9 2016) in California by U.S. solar firm Solaria.
The allegation by Solaria was that GCL Solar Energy Inc., a subsidiary of GCL-Poly Energy, stole trade secrets from Solaria and thus exercised unfair competition – using confidential Solaria technological information to develop their own shingled solar modules.
Such activity would have been a violation of a non-disclosure agreement dating from 2014, when the two firms first collaborated.
Popular content
When the case was first brought last year, GCL-Poly responded that the lawsuit was “without merit”. This week’s settlement – executed under strict confidentiality – should nevertheless draw a line under the litigation procedures, GCL-Poly stated.
The dispute was related to Solaria’s zero white space modules, as well as the connection process that enables busbarless cell technology. In total, Solaria has more than 100 patents for its PV technology.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
4 comments
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.