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JinkoSolar is on both ends of these latest patent disputes between solar manufacturers. Image: JinkoSolar.
Chinese solar manufacturers LONGi and Jinko Solar, along with Indian PV manufacturer Waaree Energies, have been named in a series of patent disputes filed in China and the US.
In China, LONGi has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Jinko at the Jinan Intermediate People’s Court in Shandong, eastern China.
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In its lawsuit, LONGi demanded an immediate halt to the manufacturing, sales and offers to sell the allegedly infringing products. However, the company did not disclose which patents Jinko was allegedly infringing.
The Jinan Intermediate People’s Court has accepted the case, with the trial expected to start on March 20.
This lawsuit follows a series of patent lawsuits between both companies in China, the US, Australia and Japan. One of these patent lawsuits was recently made by a Jinko subsidiary against LONGi in Japan. The alleged patent infringement concerns several patents in cell and module manufacturing, two of which are about the design of a solar module and the connection of solar cells within a module. However, Jinko did not specify which of the patents owned by the subsidiary, Shangrao Xinyuan Yuedong Technology Development Company have allegedly been infringed upon.
PV Tech reached out to JinkoSolar regarding this latest patent dispute between both companies.
JinkoSolar files lawsuit against Waaree in the US
In related news, two subsidiaries of JinkoSolar – Shanghai JinkoSolar Green Energy Enterprise Management and Zhejiang JinkoSolar – filed a lawsuit against Indian solar manufacturer Waaree Energies in the US for allegedly infringing a TOPCon patent.
The lawsuit was filed in the District Court for the Southern District of Texas and pertains to patent US11,824,136, which is titled “Solar Cell, Manufacturing method thereof and photovoltaic Module” and was acquired by Jinko in 2023.
PV Tech reached out to Waaree Energies regarding the alleged TOPCon patent infringement.
Although not a new development, patent infringement lawsuits have intensified in the past 12 months, and frequent readers of PV Tech might have noticed the trend continuing in 2025. This week alone has seen four new cases emerge, including the three reported here. Earlier this week, Chinese solar manufacturer Trina Solar filed a patent lawsuit against fellow solar manufacturer Canadian Solar and one of its subsidiaries.
With the module manufacturing business under significant price pressures, aggressive pursuit of patent infringement litigation has become a commonly used tactic by manufacturers to put rival producers under pressure and gain a competitive advantage.
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