Company patents
First Solar, Inc.
First Solar, Inc. shows a surprising shift in its patent strategy, moving away from its traditional "Photovoltaic Cells (Legacy CPC)" focus, which saw a significant 64.7% decline in 2025 and no patents so far in 2026, despite representing 41.2% of its portfolio. Concurrently, the company is demonstrating an emerging interest in "Organic Electronics (OLED)," with a remarkable 100.0% growth in 2026 (so far), indicating a potential diversification into display technologies, alongside a strong, albeit fluctuating, commitment to "Photovoltaic / Photoconductive Devices" (28.7% of portfolio).
Patent Trend by Technology Area
Yearly patent publications since 2023
Product themes
Product-level themes inferred from filings since 2023, with category chips showing where each theme appears. Select a theme to filter the patents below.
80 US filings (since 2023) · 7 categories · 9 themes
Focuses on novel semiconductor materials, heterostructures, and doping profiles to improve photovoltaic conversion efficiency, stability, and spectral response.
Techniques for optimizing light capture, transmission, and internal reflection within photovoltaic devices, including surface texturing, anti-reflection coatings, and light concentration or redistribution.
Systems that incorporate solar panels as a primary or auxiliary power source for various applications, including visual displays, remote devices, and portable battery charging, often emphasizing efficiency and adaptability.
Methods and components for electrically connecting photovoltaic cells within a module and ensuring long-term reliability, including busbar designs, bypass diodes, and flexible module assembly techniques.
Methods for depositing thin films with controlled conformality, thickness, and material properties, including selective deposition on specific areas, often using atomic layer deposition (ALD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), or epitaxial growth.
Design and engineering of specialized components within deposition systems, such as heaters, targets, susceptors, and chamber walls, to achieve precise control over process parameters like temperature, material flux, and plasma characteristics.
Techniques and structural designs for fabricating the physical layers of an OLED display, including material deposition, patterning, and methods to protect the active organic layers from environmental degradation like moisture and oxygen.
Development and optimization of organic chemical compounds and their structures, including guest-host systems and metal complexes, used within the emission layer to achieve specific light emission characteristics such as color, efficiency, and operational lifetime.
The design and manufacturing of integrated circuits that combine optical and electronic components, particularly for high-speed data communication between processors and memory.
Patents
Showing 1-10 of 58
Optical & Surface Engineering for PV