Huawei facing another three Solaredge lawsuits

Israel-based inverter manufacturer Solaredge Technologies, Inc. has filed three additional lawsuits for patent infringement against competitor Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., at the Regional Courts of Jinan and Shenzhen in China.

Solaredge claims that Huawei has made unauthorized use of its HD-Wave inverter technology and is now asking for damages and an injunction. “We will continue to take legal action against Huawei and others to protect our assets,” the company said in a released statement.

The new lawsuits follow the filing of similar legal actions undertaken by Solaredge in Germany against Huawei’s German business unit Huawei Technologies Düsseldorf GmbH and its local distributor Wattkraft Solar GmbH last summer.

Initially Solaredge had filed a lawsuit with the Regional Court of Mannheim, asserting the use of patented technology from Solaredge’s DC optimized inverter technology. A month later the company filed two additional proceedings at the same court, alleging that Huawei had infringed on two more of its patents. At the time, the claimant said that it intended to prevent Huawei from selling any multi-level inverter that infringed upon its protected inverter technology to the German market.

Huawei’s response and three more lawsuits revealed

Huawei told pv magazine that it was not yet notified of the new lawsuits nor is the company aware of the specific litigation content and, for this reason, the company will not comment on the new lawsuits. “Huawei will proactively respond to the lawsuit by requesting patent invalidation involved in the case as well as providing strong non-infringement defense to defend Huawei’s legitimate rights and interests,” the Chinese manufacturer stated. “No matter what the final outcome of the case, it will not affect Huawei’s business operations in Germany or other countries.”

The company also revealed that in May 2019 it had officially submitted three patent litigation files against Solaredge to the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court in China, alleging that Solaredge violated Huawei’s patents for inverter voltage adjustment and optimizer control solutions. “Huawei requested the court to order Solaredge’s wholly-owned subsidiaries located in Shanghai and Guangzhou, as well as Solaredge’s largest original equipment manufacturer Jabil Circuit (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., to immediately cease patent infringement including but not limited to manufacturing, using, selling, and offering for sale products involved in the infringement and to compensate Huawei for economic losses,” the company further explained.

Huawei believes that the European and Chinese legal system will eventually give a fair conclusion to all of these proceedings.