South Korean PV producer Hanwha Solutions, parent company of Q Cells, has had a long-contested passivation patent revoked in Europe.
The Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) last month revoked patent EP2220689, which covers solar cells with a surface passivating dielectric double layer, a technology that reduces recombination losses and boosts efficiency.
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Revocation of the patent followed oral hearings in July. Although a final document on the ruling has not yet been published, specialist patent media outlet Juve Patent reported that the decision was due to the lack of an inventive step.
At the centre of the dispute was a passivation technology developed by Qcells and commercialised as its proprietary Q.ANTUM technology, which Hanwha said plays a role in improving the efficiency and performance of silicon-based solar cells.
The patent had been the subject of legal wrangling for over a decade across numerous jurisdictions, with leading PV manufacturers including LONGi, REC Solar, Trina Solar and Jinko Solar involved in litigation.
In 2020, a German court ruled in favour of Hanwha in its dispute with Jinko, LONGi and REC. In 2023, Hanwa and Trina reached a patent licensing and transfer agreement following a court ruling the previous year against Trina’s German subsidiary over the contested patent. REC Solar was reportedly the final appellant remaining in the case.
Hanwha had separately asserted its rights to the patent in the US and Australia, where EP689 has parallel designations, Juve Patent reported.
PV Tech has contacted Hanwha for comment.
The dispute is one of many intellectual property battles that have convulsed the global PV manufacturing business in recent years as manufacturers seek strategic advantage over their competitors through so-called ‘lawfare’.
