Digital building materials Data. Com on May 12, Longji Green Energy announced that the company has reached a settlement with Hanhua in the case of Hanhua suing the company for patent infringement. On May 11, 2023, the company formally reached a patent cross-license with the Hanwha Solutions Corporation (Hanhua). After this patent cross-licensing, both parties have the right to legally use the relevant patented technology worldwide, and promise to cancel all lawsuits and patent invalidation procedures between the two parties (including related parties) worldwide.
Longji Green Energy said that after the withdrawal of the lawsuit, the company and Hanwha will no longer have any patent disputes worldwide.
So far, a four-year patent dispute has come to an end. Compared with
the four-year grievances
of Longji Hanhua in March 2019, Hanhua Company infringed its passivation technology patent. Several photovoltaic enterprises, including Longji Green Energy and Jingke Energy, have launched patent infringement lawsuits in the United States, Australia, Germany and other countries.
Subsequently, the two sides began a four-year confrontation in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Australia, during which each side won or lost. On April 11,
2020, the judge of the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) issued the preliminary ruling of the 337 investigation of "Hanwha v. Longji Products Infringement of Its United States Patent Rights", which ruled that Longji Products did not infringe Hanwha's patent rights. On June 3,
2020, the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) issued the final investigation results, ruled that Longji products did not infringe the patent rights of Hanwha Q-Cells, did not violate Section 337, terminated the investigation, and Hanwha appealed. On December 3,
2020, the United States Patent and Trademark Office made a ruling on the IPR (multi-party review) procedure filed by the company against the patent involved, ruling that all the patent rights involved were invalid, and Hanwha filed an appeal again in February 2021.
So far, the confrontation between the two sides in the United States has temporarily ended with Longji's victory, while in the litigation dispute in Europe, the pull between the two sides is more complicated. On June 18,
2020, Longji received the first instance judgment of the Dusseldorf District Court of Germany. It ruled that the LONGI SolarTechnologie GmbH of Longji subsidiary (hereinafter referred to as "German Longji") infringed the patent rights of Hanwha Q CELLS GmbH (hereinafter referred to as "German Hanhua"), and then German Longji filed an appeal. On July 2 of the same year, it submitted to the European Patent Office a statement of joining the patent opposition procedure and relevant evidentiary materials, requesting the overall revocation of the European invention patent involved in the case (EP2220689 ). As of the settlement between the two parties, the relevant procedures are still in progress. On September 10,
2021, the Rotterdam District Court of the Netherlands held a hearing on Hanhua's infringement case against Longji in the Netherlands. Dutch Lonkey is prohibited from selling, inducing, facilitating and profiting in the nine European countries where Hanwha holds the patent EP2220689B1 (Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Liechtenstein, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and Switzerland). Dutch Longi immediately filed an appeal and lost again on March 3, 2022, extending the temporary cross-border ban to 11 countries (adding Hungary and Austria).
According to the statistics of the Digital Building Materials DataBM. Com, as of May 12, 2023, Longji and Hanhua reached the date of patent cross-licensing. In addition to the above areas, the lawsuits between the two sides in Paris, France, Australia and Delaware, USA, have not yet been adjudicated.
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