First Solar Drops ITC Case to Sharpen Patent Fight Against Asian Rivals
Published on 09/18/2026 at 02:50 | Editorial boerse-global.de
First Solar has quietly closed one legal front while keeping the others wide open. The US solar manufacturer confirmed it has voluntarily withdrawn its Section 337 complaint before the US International Trade Commission (USITC), ending that investigation without prejudice — meaning the company retains the right to refile should circumstances change.
The decision, announced Wednesday, initially rattled investors. The stock gave up roughly five percent the following session as the market digested the news. By Thursday, however, the shares had rebounded 5.4 percent to close at EUR 175.60, a recovery that observers attribute less to company-specific news than to a broad-based rally across the solar sector. Even after that bounce, the stock remains down 23 percent since the start of the year.
Tariffs Reshape the Calculus at the Border
Why walk away from a trade complaint? The answer lies in Washington's shifting trade policy. Under Section 232 measures, new import restrictions now apply to polysilicon, including established floor prices and a 15 percent tariff on polysilicon-based products. Those barriers are already throttling the flow of affected solar components into the US market through trade-law instruments rather than ITC enforcement.
The ITC investigation had primarily sought import bans on specific solar modules. With the tariff landscape doing much of that work, a separate trade-commission proceeding has lost its short-term operational urgency. First Solar has left the door open to reviving the case later, should border conditions shift again.
Civil Suits Take Center Stage
With the ITC matter set aside, the battle over TOPCon cell technology moves squarely into the federal court system. Patent litigation against Canadian Solar, JinkoSolar, Trina Solar and T1 Energy remains fully active. Those suits allege infringement of protected manufacturing processes that First Solar acquired through its 2013 purchase of TetraSun.
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That patent portfolio covers key elements of high-efficiency TOPCon technology and is enforceable not only in the US but also in Canada, China, Europe and additional Asian markets. Protection runs beyond 2030, giving the federal cases substantial economic weight for the global photovoltaic industry.
Notably, the civil proceedings had been frozen while the ITC case was pending. With that matter now closed, First Solar can pursue damages and injunctions against the defendant manufacturers with full force — and management has signaled it intends to enforce its intellectual property rights against additional producers worldwide.
A Manufacturing Base Built at Home
The legal campaign does not stand alone. It rests on an industrial footprint that First Solar has assembled as the largest solar manufacturing and research operation in the Western Hemisphere. Five plants across Alabama, Louisiana and Ohio are already running. A sixth facility is under construction in South Carolina, with its first phase scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026.
By the end of 2026, the company expects to have invested more than USD 5 billion in US manufacturing and development infrastructure since 2019. Management is targeting roughly 17 gigawatts of US module capacity by 2027. That buildout consumes liquidity — the company cited seasonal working-capital swings and spending on the South Carolina site as the main drivers — but it is also the precondition for capturing scale advantages in its home market.
Earnings Show Underlying Strength
Operationally, the picture holds up. Second-quarter 2026 net revenue slipped four percent year over year to USD 1.06 billion, yet diluted earnings per share climbed 23 percent to USD 3.92 over the same period.
Perhaps more telling is the contracted order book: 45.1 gigawatts as of the end of the second quarter. That level of visibility gives First Solar a planning certainty that few competitors in a volatile market can match.
The Strategic Bet
Strip away the daily noise and the logic is straightforward. By concentrating its legal firepower on federal civil litigation, First Solar sharpens its position against Asian competitors. Backed by a multi-billion-dollar US capacity expansion and a deep order backlog, the company has built a defensive moat that investors may be underestimating after this year's share-price pullback. The coming federal court rulings will determine just how much licensing revenue — or market exclusion — First Solar can extract from its rivals.
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