General Electric (GE), the biggest US maker of wind turbines, is turning to a Texas jury this week to damp competition from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Opening arguments are set to begin tomorrow in a Dallas courtroom on a patent-infringement suit GE filed two years ago against Tokyo-based Mitsubishi. The trial may last through next week.
The dispute revolves around GE’s attempt to maintain its lead in the US wind turbine market. The case is the second between the two to reach trial, following GE’s loss in a US International Trade Commission case in Washington that sought to block imports of Mitsubishi’s turbines over different patents. A federal appeals court that heard arguments more than a year ago involving the ITC case has yet to issue an opinion.
Mitsubishi is accused in the Dallas case of infringing a patent on a way to keep turbines connected to utility grids during voltage fluctuations without sustaining damage. A second patent in the case, related to the turbines’ base design, was ruled invalid by US District Judge Royal Ferguson February 10.
GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, claims that at least 179 Mitsubishi turbines made for Iberdrola SA (IBE)’s renewables unit and Edison Mission Energy infringe the first patent. Mitsubishi signed contracts with the power companies in 2007 and 2008, and the turbines were installed in 2010 and 2011.
Mitsubishi has accused GE in a separate antitrust case of using its patents to monopolize the wind turbine market. That lawsuit is on hold pending the outcome of the GE patent cases.
A 2.4-megawatt wind turbine, the type at the center of the Dallas trial, currently costs about $3.2 million, based on an assumed $1.43 million per megawatt in turbine capacity, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Wind Turbine Price Index (WTPIPALL).
The US has the second-largest amount of wind capacity in the world behind China, according to a February 7 report by the global Wind Energy Council.
