DuPont is planning to file a patent infringement lawsuit against Giga Solar. In fact, according to Economic Daily, DuPont has officially sent out letters of request to Taiwan PV cell producers last month, prohibiting them to use Giga Solar’s silver conducive paste for U.S. cell shipment. Among all, Gintech and Solartech are the first ones to stop using Giga Solar’s paste in order to save the troubles before the US-China anti-dumping and countervailing final determination is announced. As for other Taiwan cell producers, they still choose to remain conservative prior to the final determination.
Giga Solar indicated that what DuPont did can be expected and Giga Solar is prepared for the patent litigation. Although Giga Solar started out late, its market share has reached 21% by the third quarter this year. Its high market share has drawn DuPont’s attention, causing DuPont to file another patent infringement lawsuit after doing the same to Samsung this year.
Wen-Whe Pan, president of Gintech, stated that when Gintech received DuPont’s letter of request, he immediately asked Giga Solar to present its evidence. But Giga Solar failed to meet the request at the end. Thus, Gintech has stopped using Giga Solar’s silver conducive paste in the end of November. Solartech has also done the same because it worries that its cells shipped to the U.S. in the future will be accused of patent infringement by DuPont.
However, the whole thing turnaround when Gintech announced yesterday they never received any letter of request from DuPont. Gintech also claimed that they never used Giga Solar's silver conducive paste for cells shipped to the U.S.. In addition, Giga Solar pointed out none of its silver conducive paste is directly shipped to the U.S. in case extra money will have to be spent on the patent litigation. Giga Solar emphasized that all of its paste products are mainly shipped to the European and Chinese markets.