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A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

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Re: A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

#11

Post by amelius »

evgen wrote: post #10
pfdietz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a completely obvious idea that, when the patent expired, was immediately widely adopted. It's clear in this case that the patent retarded progress rather than promoting it.

Everything is obvious once you know the secret. This went under patent protection in 2000, which is decades into the hunt for PV improvements and decades into gallium doping silicon substrate (which started in the 50s at the dawn of transistors.) Papers from the early 2000s talk about this improvement and about open questions regarding the cell lifetime and mixing gallium and germanium ratios, so it does not appear t…

But did the applicants of the patent show a working model? Or did they just patent a bunch of possible improvements in the hope that one of them would lead to a breakthrough?

Re: A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

#12

Post by pfdietz »

analog31 wrote: post #9
pfdietz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a completely obvious idea that, when the patent expired, was immediately widely adopted. It's clear in this case that the patent retarded progress rather than promoting it.

I'm not a lawyer, but have been involved in IP issues. What I've learned is that obviousness is phenomenally difficult to prove.

I'm not talking about proving it in court, I'm asking you to consider it in your own mind. When the problem with boron doping was realized, how long do you think it would have taken everyone to go down that column of the periodic table and use gallium instead? It's not like there was a huge selection of elements to chose from.

Re: A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

#14

Post by petra »

pfdietz wrote: post #12
analog31 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer, but have been involved in IP issues. What I've learned is that obviousness is phenomenally difficult to prove.

I'm not talking about proving it in court, I'm asking you to consider it in your own mind. When the problem with boron doping was realized, how long do you think it would have taken everyone to go down that column of the periodic table and use gallium instead? It's not like there was a huge selection of elements to chose from.

Maybe they were the first to discover the problem?

Re: A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

#15

Post by Scoundreller »

clarkevans wrote: post #6
msandford wrote: post #2

I don't love the language. It was patented. It could have been licensed no? The patent holder refused licensing at any price?

Perhaps one manufacturer had obtained an exclusive license, preventing the rest of the industry from using this technology?

Usually when you sign an exclusive license, you also have the ability to sub-license/assign it.

Creditors/investors don't like backing something if the asset disappears if the business itself doesn't work out.

Re: A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

#17

Post by Scoundreller »

adrian_b wrote: post #8
wbl wrote: post #4

There was no reason solar cell makers couldn't license the patent from the owner.

Such a claim is naive. While I know nothing about this specific patent of the Japanese company Shin-Etsu, when a patent is owned by a very large manufacturer like this, they very seldom want to make money by licensing the patent but they use it to exclude any competitors. This is done by either refusing to license the patent, or more likely by requesting royalties so large that the products made by any other company…

Maybe there were a few (enough?) out there that will pay stupid high prices for a slightly better PV.

E.g. satellite manufacturers? Military? Remote installations?

If they sold a consumer version, then they're at risk of losing that business to shuckers (like 'external' HDs that are cheaper than bare units).

Re: A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

#18

Post by pydry »

aerodog wrote: post #16

Aren't patents, per the constitution, to promote the progress of science? How can they act to do the opposite?

Because while the justification was more efficient innovation, their actual intended purpose was to create another form of property that could be capitalized.

Re: A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

#19

Post by drivingmenuts »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #5
wbl wrote: post #4

There was no reason solar cell makers couldn't license the patent from the owner.

It seems a bit presumptuous that in an industry with many, many actors, that it seems that the vast majority did not license the patent?

It’s a big industry now, but 20 years ago? Back then, it was a bunch of smaller companies, probably none large enough on their own to afford the royalties or they were working with their own tech to bypass IP requirements.

Re: A crucial idea for silicon PV cells was excluded by a patent for 20 years

#20

Post by bserge »

aerodog wrote: post #16

Aren't patents, per the constitution, to promote the progress of science? How can they act to do the opposite?

I guess if you patent something and then never use and/or sell it, it will just sit there, protected by law, like a valuable piece of land full of weeds and shrubs in the middle of a city.
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