4 ms·

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

clarkevans 5y ago
Perhaps one manufacturer had obtained an exclusive license, preventing the rest of the industry from using this technology?
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  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.
pfdietz 5y ago
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.
- analog31 5y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but have been involved in IP issues. What I've learned is that obviousness is phenomenally difficult to prove.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    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.
    - petra 5y ago
      Maybe they were the first to discover the problem?
      - wallacoloo 5y ago
        Possibly, but I’d like to pose a relevant question: had they discovered it and then chosen to keep quiet, how long would it have been before someone else discovered it independently? Answer: definitely less than 20 years. So why then should the first group to discover this be given 20 years of exclusivity? People claim that this promise of exclusivity drives the research. On the other hand, why pour money into research if there’s a strong chance that my competitor will beat me to the punch and then forbid me from making use of the equivalent outcome that my own research yields (and of the in-house talent I developed along the way)?
        evgen 5y ago
        > Possibly, but I’d like to pose a relevant question: had they discovered it and then chosen to keep quiet, how long would it have been before someone else discovered it independently? >Answer: definitely less than 20 years. So why then should the first group to discover this be given 20 years of exclusivity? What is absolutely hilarious about your musings here is that you are completely, 100% wrong. You make un-informed guesses and manage to get just about every aspect of the issue completely wrong. Well done. Would you like to know when it was known that gallium-doped silicon substrate was going to perform well and possibly better than boron-doped substrate? At least the mid-70s. Would you like to know when this patent was issued? 2000. So for almost 25 years everyone KNEW gallium was better. It was literally sitting out there on every periodic table on the planet and for some reason no one produced gallium-doped PV cells at scale or cost. Why is that? Maybe because the trick was not knowing that gallium is what you wanted to dope the silicon with, but in knowing HOW TO ACTUALLY PULL IT OFF. For more than two decades it was staring everyone in the face. For more than two decades everyone knew what the target was. For more than two decades NO ONE DID IT. That is why the first group to figure out how to manufacture gallium-doped silicon with the proper amount of other components were given exclusivity, because if they had not managed to do it then maybe we would all still be waiting for gallium-doped PV cells.
- evgen 5y ago
  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 to be as obvious as you suggest.
  - amelius 5y ago
    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?
    - Gibbon1 5y ago
      Random thought to throw out. Value patents based on the amount of work required to come up with them. So patenting some random shower thought is worth what you put into it. And what you can recover in a lawsuit is also tied to that. "Yeah we violated your 'something but on the internet patent' Here's a $50 Home Depot card."
      - folli 5y ago
        How will you objectively measure "amount of work required to come up with them"? That sounds rather infeasible.
        Gibbon1 5y ago
        How do we measure the value of anything objectively. But there is a world of difference between, 100's of people working for a decade on a problem kind of patents. And someone sitting on their couch for an afternoon patents. You seriously want to protect the former. And not really the latter.
        amelius 5y ago
        The same way the government funds any kind of project. Contractor says: we can do this for $X. Government says yes or no to the project. You do the same for patent applications. It's basically answering the question "how much is this technology worth to society?" If they don't pay for it, then the technology will end up as a trade secret.
- fnord77 5y ago
  if it was obvious, why wasn't it obvious until the patent?
- beervirus 5y ago
  Well in that case surely someone would have challenged the patent and got it invalidated.
  - lambdasquirrel 5y ago
    I don't see how this works out economically. Having the patent invalidated is a public good. Fighting a patent in court is expensive and risky. Why should any particular company fight a patent for the benefit of its competitors, and against some decently-well-funded conglomerate, when it's already trying to make it in a competitive field?
- refurb 5y ago
  Widely adopted idea that nobody felt was worth licensing? So more of a nice to have?
bArray 5y ago
An alternative idea to the ones mentioned here already: Perhaps they simply didn't want to give away the fact that gallium doping is an idea worth holding onto. By letting the patent timeout they save themselves tonnes of licensing money in the future, whilst also offering a reason for customers to upgrade. More cynically, they may have preferred the fact that the panels would degrade over time, driving sales. Now that the patent is expiring, they either dope with gallium or lose customers to their competitors.
Animats 5y ago
The patent holder, Shin-Etsu Chemical, did license the technology. They licensed it to to JA Solar, Longi and Trina Solar, all large solar panel makers in China. JA Solar panels have had gallium doping since Q3 2020.[1] The article somehow doesn't mention that. JA mentions gallium, but they seem to consider the weather-tightness of the surface film to be a bigger factor in lifespan. [1] http://taiyangnews.info/technology/taiyangnews-500w-conference-ja-solar/ http://taiyangnews.info/technology/taiyangnews-500w-conferen...
- rtkwe 5y ago
  2020Q3 is after the patent expired in May 2020.
  - Tostino 5y ago
    Yeah real good argument for patents not impeding progress with no tangible societal benefit...

clarkevans 5y ago

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

Scoundreller 5y ago
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.

pfdietz 5y ago

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.

analog31 5y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but have been involved in IP issues. What I've learned is that obviousness is phenomenally difficult to prove.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  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.
  - petra 5y ago
    Maybe they were the first to discover the problem?
    - wallacoloo 5y ago
      Possibly, but I’d like to pose a relevant question: had they discovered it and then chosen to keep quiet, how long would it have been before someone else discovered it independently? Answer: definitely less than 20 years. So why then should the first group to discover this be given 20 years of exclusivity? People claim that this promise of exclusivity drives the research. On the other hand, why pour money into research if there’s a strong chance that my competitor will beat me to the punch and then forbid me from making use of the equivalent outcome that my own research yields (and of the in-house talent I developed along the way)?
      - evgen 5y ago
        > Possibly, but I’d like to pose a relevant question: had they discovered it and then chosen to keep quiet, how long would it have been before someone else discovered it independently? >Answer: definitely less than 20 years. So why then should the first group to discover this be given 20 years of exclusivity? What is absolutely hilarious about your musings here is that you are completely, 100% wrong. You make un-informed guesses and manage to get just about every aspect of the issue completely wrong. Well done. Would you like to know when it was known that gallium-doped silicon substrate was going to perform well and possibly better than boron-doped substrate? At least the mid-70s. Would you like to know when this patent was issued? 2000. So for almost 25 years everyone KNEW gallium was better. It was literally sitting out there on every periodic table on the planet and for some reason no one produced gallium-doped PV cells at scale or cost. Why is that? Maybe because the trick was not knowing that gallium is what you wanted to dope the silicon with, but in knowing HOW TO ACTUALLY PULL IT OFF. For more than two decades it was staring everyone in the face. For more than two decades everyone knew what the target was. For more than two decades NO ONE DID IT. That is why the first group to figure out how to manufacture gallium-doped silicon with the proper amount of other components were given exclusivity, because if they had not managed to do it then maybe we would all still be waiting for gallium-doped PV cells.
evgen 5y ago
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 to be as obvious as you suggest.
- amelius 5y ago
  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?
  - Gibbon1 5y ago
    Random thought to throw out. Value patents based on the amount of work required to come up with them. So patenting some random shower thought is worth what you put into it. And what you can recover in a lawsuit is also tied to that. "Yeah we violated your 'something but on the internet patent' Here's a $50 Home Depot card."
    - folli 5y ago
      How will you objectively measure "amount of work required to come up with them"? That sounds rather infeasible.
      - Gibbon1 5y ago
        How do we measure the value of anything objectively. But there is a world of difference between, 100's of people working for a decade on a problem kind of patents. And someone sitting on their couch for an afternoon patents. You seriously want to protect the former. And not really the latter.
      - amelius 5y ago
        The same way the government funds any kind of project. Contractor says: we can do this for $X. Government says yes or no to the project. You do the same for patent applications. It's basically answering the question "how much is this technology worth to society?" If they don't pay for it, then the technology will end up as a trade secret.
fnord77 5y ago
if it was obvious, why wasn't it obvious until the patent?
beervirus 5y ago
Well in that case surely someone would have challenged the patent and got it invalidated.
- lambdasquirrel 5y ago
  I don't see how this works out economically. Having the patent invalidated is a public good. Fighting a patent in court is expensive and risky. Why should any particular company fight a patent for the benefit of its competitors, and against some decently-well-funded conglomerate, when it's already trying to make it in a competitive field?
refurb 5y ago
Widely adopted idea that nobody felt was worth licensing? So more of a nice to have?

bArray 5y ago

An alternative idea to the ones mentioned here already: Perhaps they simply didn't want to give away the fact that gallium doping is an idea worth holding onto. By letting the patent timeout they save themselves tonnes of licensing money in the future, whilst also offering a reason for customers to upgrade. More cynically, they may have preferred the fact that the panels would degrade over time, driving sales. Now that the patent is expiring, they either dope with gallium or lose customers to their competitors.

Animats 5y ago

The patent holder, Shin-Etsu Chemical, did license the technology. They licensed it to to JA Solar, Longi and Trina Solar, all large solar panel makers in China. JA Solar panels have had gallium doping since Q3 2020.[1] The article somehow doesn't mention that. JA mentions gallium, but they seem to consider the weather-tightness of the surface film to be a bigger factor in lifespan. [1] http://taiyangnews.info/technology/taiyangnews-500w-conference-ja-solar/ http://taiyangnews.info/technology/taiyangnews-500w-conferen...

rtkwe 5y ago
2020Q3 is after the patent expired in May 2020.
- Tostino 5y ago
  Yeah real good argument for patents not impeding progress with no tangible societal benefit...