Recently, a major announcement has "ignited" the solar industry.
Around 5 PM on September 19, two leading solar companies, Longi Green Energy Technology Co.,Ltd. (601012.SH) and JinkoSolar (688223.SH), successively released statements announcing they had reached a settlement agreement regarding patent claims and legal matters between both parties and their affiliated companies globally.
The statements were presented in both Chinese and English.
The most notable statement read: "Both parties agree to end all ongoing patent dispute legal proceedings globally and reach relevant commercial arrangements for cross-licensing of certain core patents held by each party."
A solar industry insider analyzed: "The handshake between JinkoSolar and Longi Green Energy means that at least these two companies may no longer engage in public debates over 'whether TOPCon or BC is the mainstream technology.'"
This speculation is not without basis. According to sources, the "cross-licensing of certain core patents" mentioned in the statement for commercial arrangements refers to the TOPCon and BC patents held respectively by the two solar companies.
**Patent Battle Between Two Industry Leaders**
When solar cell technology entered its third development phase, N-type cell technologies TOPCon, BC, and HJT took center stage. The "technology battle" between TOPCon and BC has attracted particular attention.
TOPCon is a tunnel oxide passivated contact cell that achieves passivated contact through ultra-thin tunneling oxide layers and polysilicon layers, reducing carrier recombination and improving open-circuit voltage and conversion efficiency. BC adopts a front-side gridline-free back-contact structure, with both positive and negative electrodes completely located on the back side, improving photoelectric conversion efficiency and power generation.
The battle between these two technologies began in 2023.
That year, TOPCon began dominating the market. According to data from the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, TOPCon cells alone captured approximately 23% market share in 2023, while the entire N-type cell market share was less than 10% the previous year.
On September 5, 2023, Longi Green Energy Technology held its 2023 interim results briefing. During the meeting, company Chairman Zhong Baoshen stated: "In the next 5-6 years, BC cells will be the absolute mainstream of crystalline silicon cells."
Thus began the direct confrontation between the TOPCon camp led by JinkoSolar and the BC camp led by Longi Green Energy Technology.
However, despite both companies having clear preferences for N-type cell technologies, in actual business operations, Longi Green Energy Technology possesses some TOPCon capacity, while JinkoSolar has reportedly been developing BC production lines. JinkoSolar disclosed BC technology research progress in its 2025 interim report: "Developing low-recombination metallization technology, matching TOPCon cell passivated contact technology and cell back-side patterning technology to form complete fully passivated contact BC cell process technology, while simultaneously conducting pilot-scale verification and differentiated efficiency enhancement technology development. Through third-party testing and certification, N-type BC cells achieved a maximum conversion efficiency of 27.2%."
In terms of results, both Longi Green Energy Technology and JinkoSolar have involved themselves in the technology routes that the other excels at in their actual deployments. However, it should be noted that the technology battle initiated by these two solar giants over the past two years has also served as a backdrop for patent disputes.
On December 4, 2024, JinkoSolar filed multiple lawsuits in Jiangsu, suing Longi Green Energy Technology for patent infringement. One month later, JinkoSolar again sued Longi Green Energy Technology for patent infringement in Nanchang, Jiangxi.
Longi Green Energy Technology began counterattacking in January 2025, first counter-suing JinkoSolar in the United States for infringing TOPCon technology patents, then suing JinkoSolar in Jinan, Shandong.
JinkoSolar also extended the battlefield to Japan and Australia, suing local subsidiaries of Longi Green Energy Technology for patent infringement in January and February 2025, respectively.
According to court records, information about Longi Green Energy Technology's patent dispute case against JinkoSolar at Jinan Intermediate People's Court, which had a hearing on July 14, can still be found.
In fact, reports indicate that in late August and early September this year, JinkoSolar began requesting temporary suspension of Longi Green Energy Technology's patent infringement cases against it at the European Unified Patent Court, until both parties officially released their joint statement, bringing an end to the six-month patent battle between these two solar giants.
**Patent Protection is a Long-term Battle**
After the patent dispute between Longi Green Energy Technology and JinkoSolar was declared over, does this mean the debate over "whether TOPCon or BC is mainstream" is also nearing its end?
Industry insiders told sources that the technology battle and patent disputes merely reflect market share competition. Under the current supply-demand imbalance, the volume of solar cell technology debates has already diminished.
Taking this year's June SNEC solar exhibition as an example, mainstream solar module manufacturers no longer exclusively showcased products from a single technology route. Meanwhile, leaders of major solar companies have explicitly stated that debating whether TOPCon, BC, or HJT is better has become meaningless.
However, the impact following the patent settlement between Longi Green Energy Technology and JinkoSolar cannot be ignored.
"Longi Green Energy Technology and JinkoSolar respectively hold the most patents for BC and TOPCon technologies. The cross-licensing of certain core patents between these two solar giants is equivalent to forming a technology alliance. Under current overcapacity conditions, companies with homogeneous competition and no patent protection will find it extremely difficult to operate," the industry insider stated.
Undeniably, the patent dispute settlement between Longi Green Energy Technology and JinkoSolar will become a landmark event advocating intellectual property protection in China's current solar industry.
Prior to this patent settlement between Longi Green Energy Technology and JinkoSolar, seven out of the top ten global solar module shipment manufacturers had already been involved in patent disputes. Among them, most module manufacturers have the dual identity of being both plaintiff and defendant.
According to statistics, since the second half of 2024, JA Solar, Trina Solar, JinkoSolar, Longi Green Energy Technology, and Canadian Solar have initiated patent lawsuits (including counter-suits) in multiple domestic and international solar markets. Among these, the most notable cases besides the dispute between Longi Green Energy Technology and JinkoSolar include Trina Solar's announcement in February of patent infringement charges against Canadian Solar involving two patents, with damages sought exceeding 1 billion yuan.
As of August this year, this case remains in the preliminary evidence exchange phase and has not yet formally gone to trial.
Wang Ping, a lawyer from Long'an Shanghai Law Firm, previously pointed out in interviews that the complexity of solar patent litigation cases is high, primarily because of high technical barriers. Patents involve interdisciplinary fields such as materials science, nanostructures, and optical coatings, requiring detailed comparisons by third-party technical appraisal institutions. "The uncertainty in the process and outcomes of patent infringement litigation creates complex impacts on the market value of patent-intensive enterprises."
In practice, protecting intellectual property rights has been viewed as an effective means to prevent the solar industry from falling into homogeneous vicious competition.
In November 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially released the "Photovoltaic Manufacturing Industry Standard Conditions (2024 Edition)," aimed at strengthening management of the photovoltaic manufacturing industry and promoting industrial transformation, upgrading, and structural adjustment. This document particularly emphasized the importance of intellectual property rights, encouraging enterprises to strengthen the development, application, and protection of intellectual property rights and establish comprehensive intellectual property compliance management systems.
On August 19 this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments jointly convened a solar industry symposium to deploy further work on standardizing competitive order in the solar industry. The meeting mentioned the need to standardize product quality and combat behaviors such as reducing quality control, falsely labeling product power, and infringing intellectual property rights.
However, for both enterprises and the industry, this will be a long-term battle.
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