The US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board has issued final written decisions invalidating several patent claims asserted by Chinese solar manufacturer Trina Solar against its rival Canadian Solar and subsidiaries, as well as Runergy.
Released last week (15 April 2026), the decision involved two of Trina Solar’s patents – Patent 9,722,104 B2 and Patent 10,230,009 B2 – which were part of lawsuits filed in 2024 against Canadian Solar and its subsidiaries, as well as Runergy and its US subsidiary. Both cases ended up merging into one after Canadian Solar joined as a petitioner in the Runergy cases, based on a petition and motion for joinder filed in similar cases involving the same patents, which the USPTO granted.
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In total, the USPTO published decisions on both patent litigations filed against all three companies mentioned earlier and determined that “Petitioner has established by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1–11 of the ’104 patent are unpatentable,” reads the file for the first patent.
Similarly, for the other patent, Patent 10,230,009 B2, the USPTO wrote that claims 1-17 demonstrated that the patent was unpatentable. That patent was titled “Solar Cell and Method for Manufacturing the Same,” and was issued in 2019, while the other patent was titled “Solar Cell and Method for Manufacturing the Same,” and was issued in 2017.
Colin Parkin, president of Canadian Solar, said: “Canadian Solar has always remained committed to organic and independent R&D. We possess a deep and comprehensive understanding of our proprietary technologies. While we respect and value the intellectual property rights of all companies as we do our own, we firmly oppose the abusive use of IP to extort or hinder competition. We will continue to vigorously defend our legitimate business interests.”
PV Tech reached out to Trina Solar and Runergy for comments regarding the USPTO decision.
Trina Solar filed another patent infringement lawsuit in 2024 against Mundra Solar, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Adani Solar, relating to the same two patents, but the matter was resolved before trial, according to the USPTO’s determination documents.
