SunEdison sued by DuPont for patent infringement

DuPont has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against SunEdison and its affiliate NVT LLC in the US District Court for the District of Delaware. In its complaint, DuPont alleges that by sourcing and using photovoltaic cells and solar modules containing Samsung SDI Co Ltd (into which the former Cheil Industries Inc merged) front side metallisation paste, SunEdison infringes DuPont’s patented tellurium paste technology. The complaint also identifies Neo Solar Power of Taiwan as the cell manufacturer and Flextronics as SunEdison’s contract manufacturer.
 
Peter Brenner, global photovoltaic business marketing manager, Microcircuit Materials, DuPont Electronics & Communications, said, “DuPont will enforce its patent rights to protect our substantial investment in innovation to improve solar energy efficiency. Installers and module makers like SunEdison are responsible for ensuring that their products do not use infringing cells or pastes. Our patented tellurium technology is available only from DuPont; no other photovoltaic paste manufacturer has a license to use our patented technology.”
 
As a leading supplier of materials to the photovoltaic industry, DuPont has helped improve the power output, reliable lifetime and cost-competitiveness of solar energy through innovations such as Solamet photovoltaic metallisation paste products. DuPont has been able to deliver these innovations to the solar industry as a result of investing heavily in research and development.
 
DuPont Solamet photovoltaic metallisation pastes are part of a broad and growing portfolio of products represented by DuPont Photovoltaic Solutions (DPVS), which connects science and technology from across the company on a global scale to help support the dramatic growth in the photovoltaic industry.