Nextracker has settled a patent infringement lawsuit against Ohio-based Northern States Metals Co., which conducts its solar energy business under the name Solar FlexRack.
California-based Nextracker filed suit in federal court in June 2020 in a matter titled NEXTracker Inc., v. Solar FlexRack and Northern States Metals Company, Case No. 1:20-cv-00849-MN (Delaware).
Under terms of the settlement agreement, Solar FlexRack will pay Nextracker royalties on qualifying sales revenue of Solar FlexRack’s TDP 2.0 solar tracker and certain related products, services, and components. Other terms were not disclosed.
The lawsuit alleged that FlexRack improperly made use of Nextracker’s patented technology. The patents include U.S. Patent No. 9,806,669, entitled “Single-Axis Follower Support System for a Solar Collector,” and No. 9,970,686, entitled “Balanced Solar Tracker Clamp.”
In a separate statement, Solar FlexRack said it agreed to dismiss claims filed with the Patent and Trademark Office to invalidate Nextracker patent rights that were the subject of the lawsuit. Northern States Metals said it denied ever infringing on any of Nextracker’s patent rights. It said the settlement agreement provided for “only nominal payments” by Northern States, which the company said it agreed to pay to avoid a protracted legal process.
This article was updated March 15 to include comments from Northern States Metals.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.