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Run your analysis now →https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/rd-blog/cigs-solar-cell-environmental-durability-patent-landscape/ · Patsnap · data cut-off 2026-07-31 · downloaded from the live page
Patent Landscape · Photovoltaics & SolarCIGS Solar Cell Environmental Durability Patents
- Filing is still accelerating, not tapering — 2021 alone produced a third of the peak-decade volume, and the midpoint year sits near the bottom of the curve.
- Encapsulation, not the absorber, dominates the claim space, with layered-product and glass/enamel IPC classes running alongside core semiconductor filings rather than behind them.
- No single assignee is filing every year, recent-year momentum shows the most cited historical filers with zero activity in the latest tracked year — the incumbents have gone quiet.
71
Published Records
44%
Top-5 Share of All Records
-92%
3-Yr Growth (lag-adjusted)
US
Leading Jurisdiction
Published byPatsnap Research··7 min readSourced from Patsnap Eureka
Overview
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families addressing damp-heat durability, moisture-induced degradation resistance and environmental stability in CIGS (copper indium gallium selenide) thin-film solar cells. The corpus spans 71 published families filed between 2015 and mid-2026, drawn from filings that combine CIGS-specific terminology with durability and stability language rather than general photovoltaic prior art.
Because publication typically lags filing by around eighteen months, the most recent one or two years in any trend line understate real filing activity. Readers should treat the 2025-2026 figures as a floor, not a ceiling, on current work.
Filing activity, 2017-2026
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee ranking and totals. Derived from a Patsnap search on CIGS Solar Cell Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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The Data
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 71-family dataset: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
Filings accelerated after a 2022 trough
Volume rose from 3 families in 2017 to a peak of 12 in 2021, dipped to a single filing at the 2022 midpoint, and has not yet returned to peak — though the partial 2026 count should not be read as a decline given publication lag.
Semiconductor devices dominate, but packaging classes are substantial
H01L (semiconductor devices) accounts for 41 of the classified records, more than the next four subclasses combined. B32B (layered products & laminates) and C03C (glass & enamel compositions) together account for 17 records, indicating that a meaningful share of durability engineering is happening at the encapsulation and substrate-bonding level rather than in the absorber stack itself.
Shares are the percentage of the 71 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Filing trend and technology composition. Derived from a Patsnap search on CIGS Solar Cell Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.
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Most-cited records and a recent representative filing
Representative recent filing
WO2026155772A2 — Radiation-sensitive devices with a composite semiconductor structure for detecting radiation
CAPESYM, INC.
A radiation-sensitive device that can detect radiation includes a plurality of semiconductor structures. Different semiconductor structures comprise different semiconductor materials, and the semiconductor structures are architecturally and functionally integrated such that charge carriers generated by incident radiation in one or more of the semiconductor structures cause the generation of additional charge carriers within the composite semiconductor structure, thereby producing an intrinsic charge-amplification effect that enhances a signal-to-noise ratio of the radiation-sensitive device. A plurality of electrodes is configured to apply an electric field across the composite semiconductor.Filed by CAPESYM, INC., published 2026-07-23 — the most recent record in this dataset.
Highest-cited records in the corpus
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20110003279A1 | Monitoring devices and processes based on transformation, destruction and conversion of nanostructures | 134 |
| 2 | US20090159119A1 | Technique and apparatus for manufacturing flexible and moisture resistive photovoltaic modules | 69 |
| 3 | US20100035052A1 | Polyimide substrate bonded to other substrate | 36 |
| 4 | US20080089637A1 | Polymide substrate bonded to other substrate | 35 |
| 5 | US20160349088A1 | Monitoring devices and processes based on transformation, destruction and conversion of nanostructures | 29 |
| 6 | US7512297B2 | Polymide substrate bonded to other substrate | 24 |
| 7 | US20190221690A1 | Solar cell comprising a metal-oxide buffer layer and method of fabrication | 21 |
| 8 | US20100320456A1 | Method for Fabricating a Doped and/or Alloyed Semiconductor | 17 |
| 9 | WO2018057419A1 | Solar cell comprising a metal-oxide buffer layer and method of fabrication | 16 |
| 10 | US8107777B2 | Polyimide substrate bonded to other substrate | 16 |
Citation counts are drawn from a searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of influence on subsequent art, not of current commercial relevance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Citation counts and representative records. Derived from a Patsnap search on CIGS Solar Cell Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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What the numbers mean for a filing decision
Three read-throughs from the trend, composition and citation data above.
Filing momentum
12 in 2021, 1 at 2022 midpoint
peak vs. trough year
Growth is real but uneven, not a smooth curve
The jump to 12 families in 2021 followed by a collapse to a single filing the next year suggests a burst of activity around a specific technical trigger — likely a durability-standard update or a wave of pilot-line qualification work — rather than steady organic growth. The subsequent partial recovery through 2026 should be read against the publication-lag caveat.
Trend data, 2017-2026
Where claims concentrate
41 of the classified records
H01L share
Semiconductor-device claims still lead, but not by as much as raw volume suggests
H01L carries the largest single share, but B32B, C03C and H02S together account for a comparable volume of filings focused on lamination, glass chemistry and module-level power generation. Durability engineering in this field is distributed across the stack, not concentrated in absorber composition alone.
IPC composition, all years
Citation concentration
134 citations
top-cited record
The most-cited prior art predates the durability-specific filing wave
The highest-cited records in the corpus relate to nanostructure monitoring and flexible moisture-resistive module manufacturing filed well before the 2021 peak, meaning current filers are building on a foundation that is a decade or more old rather than on recent breakthroughs.
Most-cited records table
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Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cigs solar cell environmental durability, with the prior art for and against each one.
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Co-assignee relationships and derived observations. Derived from a Patsnap search on CIGS Solar Cell Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
Players
Who is filing, and who has gone quiet
Recent-year momentum tells a different story than historical volume: several of the assignees with the deepest filing history show zero activity in the latest tracked year, which either means they have shifted strategy elsewhere or that their newest work simply has not published yet.
Collaboration pattern
9 co-assignee pairs
joint filings identified
Cross-filing is rare and concentrated around one pairing
Only nine co-assignee pairs appear across the dataset, and the strongest of these — a materials company filing jointly with a university board — recurs four times, well ahead of any other pairing. Most other filers in this space are working alone rather than through joint ventures or research partnerships.
Co-assignee pair analysis
Recent-year activity
0 in latest year
for several top historical filers
Historical volume does not predict current output
Several assignees with meaningful filing histories in this dataset show no filings in the most recent tracked year. Given the publication lag inherent to patent data, this could reflect a genuine pause, a shift to trade-secret protection, or simply filings still working through the pipeline.
Recent-year momentum by assignee
Filing office spread
23 US, 17 EPO, 11 WIPO
top three receiving offices
Filing strategy still centres on US and European protection
The United States and the European Patent Office together receive well over half the tracked filings, with WIPO/PCT applications suggesting a meaningful share of filers are keeping multi-jurisdiction options open rather than committing early to a single market.
Receiving office distribution
Recent-year filing momentum by assignee
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| 3M Innovative Properties Company | 0 | — |
| Juntai Innovation (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| JP Laboratories, Inc. | 0 | — |
| Encapsulix Flexible Products Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation | 0 | — |
| Merck Patent GmbH | 0 | — |
| Dow Global Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
| Gold Century Technology Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
Source: Patsnap Eureka. Assignee-level momentum. Derived from a Patsnap search on CIGS Solar Cell Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
What's Next
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field where encapsulation and substrate engineering matter as much as absorber chemistry, and where recent filer activity is harder to read than raw historical volume suggests.
Map the encapsulation sub-claims in detail
The B32B and C03C volume suggests durability engineering is happening at the lamination and glass-chemistry level; a finer-grained claim map of this sub-space would clarify how crowded it really is.
Explore in EurekaTrack the quiet incumbents
Assignees with strong historical filing but zero recent-year activity are worth monitoring for renewed filings, acquisitions, or a pivot to a different durability approach.
Set up monitoring in EurekaSource: Patsnap Eureka. Forward-looking reading of the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on CIGS Solar Cell Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
FAQ
Common questions on this landscape
In this dataset, environmental durability covers patents addressing damp-heat durability, moisture-induced degradation resistance, and general environmental stability of CIGS thin-film solar cells and their component layers. This includes encapsulation materials, substrate bonding, glass and enamel compositions used for sealing, and monitoring methods for detecting degradation over time. It does not include general CIGS efficiency or manufacturing patents that make no durability claim.
The dataset shows filings climbing to 12 in 2021 before falling sharply to a single filing at the 2022 midpoint. This pattern is more consistent with a concentrated burst of activity — possibly tied to a qualification standard, a competitive filing race, or a specific product launch cycle — than with steady organic growth. Readers should also account for publication lag: filings from the last one to two years in any dataset are undercounted because publication typically trails filing by about eighteen months.
H01L (semiconductor devices) carries the largest share of records at 41, but B32B (layered products and laminates), C03C (glass and enamel compositions) and H02S (photovoltaic power generation) together account for a substantial share of the remaining filings. This indicates that a meaningful portion of durability engineering work targets encapsulation, lamination and glass sealing rather than the CIGS absorber composition itself. Anyone scoping freedom-to-operate in this space should search across all of these classes, not just H01L.
Not necessarily. High citation counts in a searched corpus tend to favour older records simply because they have had more time to accumulate citations, and the top-cited entries in this dataset predate the 2021 filing peak by several years. They remain useful as foundational prior art and as a starting point for freedom-to-operate searches, but current competitive activity is better tracked through recent filing and assignee momentum data rather than citation rank alone.
The dataset identifies only nine co-assignee pairs across 71 families, meaning most filers are working independently rather than through joint ventures. Recent-year momentum data also shows several assignees with substantial historical filing counts recording zero filings in the latest tracked year, which suggests the field has not consolidated around a small set of continuously active filers. This combination of low collaboration and uneven recent activity points to a still-fragmented landscape rather than one dominated by a stable set of leaders.
Answers are grounded in the same dataset. Derived from a Patsnap search on CIGS Solar Cell Environmental Durability covering 2015–2026, data cut-off 2026-07-31. Counts reflect published records only and shift as new filings publish.Run this in Eureka MCP
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company's registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.