According to local media reports, First solar revealed that The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has rejected Mundra Solar, an Indian photovoltaic company , and JinkoSolar , a Chinese photovoltaic company . The three photovoltaic enterprises of Atlas applied for the IPR procedure. In February
2025, First Solar, an American photovoltaic company, accused JinkoSolar of infringing its US patent No.9,130,074 (US 9,130,074 B2) related to TOPCon battery technology. Three months later, in May 2025, First Solar used the same patented technology to accuse Atlas of patent infringement.
In response, Jingke Energy and Atlas filed IPR proceedings with the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in July and August, respectively. In April 2025
, Mundra Solar took the lead in filing a "non-infringement lawsuit" in the United States District Court of Delaware.
Four months later, on August 1, 2025, First Solar filed a counterclaim against Mundra Solar in a non-infringement confirmation action. Formal patent infringement charges were filed against Mundra Solar and its affiliated Indian photovoltaic companies, including Adani Solar Systems.
Soon after, on August 15, 2025, Mundra Solar filed an IPR application with the USPTO for First Solar's U.S. Patent No.9,666,732. On September 22,
2025, Mundra filed an answer to First Solar's counterclaim, supplemented by a counterclaim asserting the invalidity of First Solar's patents. On December 11,
2025, the USPTO Administrator formally denied Mundra Solar's IPR request.
Similarly, in November and December 2025, the applications for IPR procedures filed by JinkoSolar and Atlas were rejected twice by the Director of USPTO.
According to the documents, the application for IPR procedure of the above three photovoltaic enterprises was rejected on the basis that "the USPTO Director exercised his discretion in accordance with relevant regulations and decided not to initiate IPR." That is to say, the IPR procedures of the three enterprises were rejected at the administrative level, which is not equivalent to the recognition of First Solar patents.
Up to the date of publication, the above three enterprises have not yet responded to this matter.
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