CIGS Solar Cell Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
- 118 families tracked, with filing accelerating again after a flat 2022 midpoint rather than a market in decline.
- The US receiving office dominates, with 65 of the filings, well ahead of EPO (19) and WIPO/PCT (18) combined.
- Citation weight sits with older solution-based fabrication art, meaning newer selenization and deposition claims are filing against unusually well-cited priors.
What this landscape covers
This dataset tracks patent families filed against CIGS thin-film solar cell technology specifically tied to scale-up: roll-to-roll production, large-area deposition and module manufacturing scale-up. It excludes general CIGS cell chemistry work that never engages a manufacturing-scale claim, which is why the family count is modest at 118 despite CIGS being a decades-old photovoltaic chemistry. The claims here are about getting CIGS out of the lab and onto a line, not about improving cell efficiency in isolation.
Filing activity peaked in 2017 at 12 families, dropped toward a 2022 midpoint of zero, and has since picked back up — a pattern more consistent with a technology re-entering commercial attention than one in steady decline. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent years in the trend understate real activity.
Filing trend and technology composition
The IPC spread shows this is a semiconductor-device story first, with secondary claim activity in nanostructures, coatings and electroplating — the process steps that actually determine whether a CIGS line scales.
Filing trend: acceleration after a flat middle
From a 2017 peak of 12 families, filings fell to zero at the 2022 midpoint before picking back up toward the data cut-off. Read the tail years as a floor, not a ceiling, given the usual 18-month publication lag.
Where the claims sit
H01L (semiconductor devices) covers 108 of 118 records, confirming this is overwhelmingly device- and structure-level claim territory. H10P appears in 43 records, and secondary clusters in B82B (nanostructures, 22), C09D (coatings, 11) and C25D (electroplating, 10) mark the process-engineering side of scale-up — thinner but still active.
Shares are the percentage of the 118 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on CIGS Solar Cell Scale-Up and Mass Production with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about cigs solar cell scale-up and mass production and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe most-cited prior art in this space
Photovoltaic devices including copper indium gallium selenide
A copper indium gallium selenide photovoltaic cell can include a substrate having a transparent conductive oxide layer. The copper indium gallium selenide can be deposited using sputtering and vapor transport deposition.Filed under JPMorgan Chase Bank's assignee record, dated 2010-07-29 — illustrative of how CIGS deposition-method claims were structured a decade-plus before the current scale-up filing wave.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20050183767A1 | Solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cell | 327 |
| 2 | US20140073082A1 | Method of manufacturing light – absorbtion layer of solar cell through selenization process under elemental s… | 325 |
| 3 | US7663057B2 | Solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cell | 99 |
| 4 | US20100197068A1 | Hybrid Transparent Conductive Electrode | 96 |
| 5 | US20080135099A1 | Solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cell | 88 |
| 6 | US20080213467A1 | Solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cell | 79 |
| 7 | US20080135812A1 | Solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cell | 73 |
| 8 | US20080142081A1 | Solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cell | 71 |
| 9 | US20150083206A1 | Photovoltaic cells | 70 |
| 10 | US20080142083A1 | Solution-based fabrication of photovoltaic cell | 68 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus favour older filings; treat this table as a map of foundational influence, not of current competitive strength.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the filing trend, IPC spread and citation table are read together: renewed filing momentum, a device-claim concentration, and a citation base that rewards early solution-based fabrication work.
A second wave, not a straight decline
The 2017 peak of 12 families gave way to a zero-filing 2022 midpoint, but activity has picked up since. That U-shape looks like renewed commercial interest in CIGS scale-up rather than an exhausted technology.
Device claims dominate the corpus
Semiconductor-device claims (H01L) appear in 108 of 118 records, with H10P present in 43. Process-side IPCs — coatings, electroplating, nanostructures — are present but much thinner, suggesting device architecture is more heavily claimed than the manufacturing process itself.
Old solution-based art still anchors the field
The two most-cited records in the corpus are solution-based photovoltaic cell fabrication filings and a selenization-process filing, both cited well above the rest of the table. New entrants building on selenization or solution routes are filing in the shadow of unusually well-established prior art.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to cigs solar cell scale-up and mass production, with the prior art for and against each one.
| Assignee | Co-assignee | Shared families |
|---|---|---|
| YU DONG | SAGER BRIAN M | 7 |
| YU DONG | FIDANZA JACQUELINE | 7 |
| VAN DUREN JEROEN K J | SHEATS JAMES R | 7 |
| VAN DUREN JEROEN K J | ROBINSON MATTHEW R | 7 |
| SHEATS JAMES R | ROBINSON MATTHEW R | 7 |
| SAGER BRIAN M | FIDANZA JACQUELINE | 7 |
| VAN DUREN JEROEN K J | POON HAK FEI | 5 |
| VAN DUREN JEROEN K J | ERBEN CHRISTOPHER | 5 |
Ten co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset; the strongest pairings (each at 7 shared families) link named inventors across what look like solution-based fabrication and hybrid-electrode filing programs, suggesting small, stable inventor teams rather than broad cross-company alliances.
Who is filing, and where the gaps are
Recent-year momentum across the named assignees in this dataset reads flat: the organisations tracked show zero families in the latest year, consistent with the broader publication lag rather than an active pullback.
A long tail, not a settled leader
None of the named assignees show activity in the most recent tracked year — expected given an 18-month publication lag, but it also means no single organisation has pulled decisively ahead in recent filings.
Filing strategy is US-centric
The United States receives more than half of all filings in this dataset, with EPO and WIPO/PCT together accounting for 37 — a filing footprint concentrated on US commercial protection ahead of broad international coverage.
Small, stable inventor clusters
The strongest co-assignee pairs each recur across 7 shared families, pointing to durable individual filing partnerships rather than shifting, opportunistic collaborations.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Nanosolar | 0 | — |
| Trinamix GmbH | 0 | — |
| Sandvik Intellectual Property AB | 0 | — |
| University of Western Ontario | 0 | — |
| Aventa Technologies LLC | 0 | — |
| YU DONG | 0 | — |
| VAN DUREN JEROEN K J | 0 | — |
| SHEATS JAMES R | 0 | — |
Where to take this analysis
The filing trend and claim map raise questions that a static landscape page cannot answer on its own — they need a working session against the live family data.
Model the design-around space
Take the highest-citation records in this table and map exactly which claim elements block a specific deposition or selenization route you're planning.
Explore in Patsnap Eureka →Track the recent-filing gap
Recent-year momentum reads at zero across tracked assignees because of publication lag — refresh this view against live filings before making a go/no-go call.
Explore in Patsnap Eureka →Size the white space branches
Coating, electroplating and roll-to-roll process claims are thinner than device claims — quantify how thin before committing R&D budget to a specific sub-area.
Explore in Patsnap Eureka →Common questions about CIGS scale-up patents
The most-cited records in this dataset are solution-based photovoltaic cell fabrication filings and a selenization-process filing, each cited well above the rest of the corpus. High citation counts favour older filings simply because they've had more time to be cited, so treat this as a map of foundational influence rather than a current market-share ranking. For a live view of who is actively filing now, the recent-year momentum data is a better signal than the citation table.
The trend is a U-shape: filings peaked at 12 families in 2017, fell to zero at the 2022 midpoint, and have picked back up since. That pattern looks more like renewed commercial interest in CIGS scale-up than a technology in terminal decline. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent years understate true filing activity, so the real recovery may already be larger than the visible data shows.
Device-level claims under H01L cover 108 of 118 records in this dataset, meaning cell architecture is heavily occupied. Process-side categories — coatings, electroplating, roll-to-roll handling — appear far less frequently, which points to comparatively open ground in areas like in-line selenization atmosphere control or large-area electroplating uniformity. Thin filing density signals occupied-versus-open claim space, not technology maturity, so verify freedom-to-operate before committing to any specific route.
Of the 118 tracked records, 65 were filed through the US receiving office, compared with 19 through the EPO and 18 through WIPO/PCT. That split suggests filers are prioritising US commercial protection first, with international coverage — via PCT or direct EPO filing — treated as a secondary step. Companies planning to compete in Europe or Asia should check whether the US-heavy filers in this space have followed through with regional filings before assuming freedom-to-operate outside the US.
US20100186812A1 describes a copper indium gallium selenide photovoltaic cell built on a substrate with a transparent conductive oxide layer, with the CIGS layer deposited via sputtering and vapor transport deposition. Filed under a JPMorgan Chase Bank assignee record dated 2010-07-29, it predates the current scale-up filing wave by well over a decade. Anyone working on sputtering- or vapor-transport-based CIGS deposition should read its specific claim scope carefully, since it sits early in the citation history of this technology area.
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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.