Australian company litigates with Tesla over patent
Australian battery-technology company CAP-XX has said that it will “strenuously defend” itself against an intellectual property complaint newly filed by Tesla in a Texas federal court.
CAP-XX posted an ‘Update on Patent Infringement’ notice via the London Stock Exchange last week with details regarding both its own ongoing claim against Maxwell Technologies Inc., now a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesla Inc., first lodged in a Delaware court in 2018, and the new case now being brought against CAP-XX by Tesla.
Tesla’s filing against CAP-XX has prompted questions about Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s 2014 pledge not to “initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology”. However, it was CAP-XX which first sued Maxwell Technologies in 2018, albeit before Tesla acquired the company in 2019.
Both cases appear to relate to patents related to supercapacitors, a component that stores energy in electric vehicle batteries.
Regarding the original case in Delaware, CAP-XX has said that its board “remains optimistic” of the company’s “prospects in this matter” which was recently pushed back from July 24, 2023 to December 11, 2023, due to the passing away of an expert witness for Maxwell.
CAP-XX has separately said that with licensing “an important revenue stream” for the company it “continues to vigorously defend its intellectual property”.
This includes another case brought by CAP-XX in the Delaware District Court where Ioxus was found liable for infringing patents with US $4.95m plus legal fees awarded to CAP-XX, per the company’s 2021 annual report.
CAP-XX is a self-described “world leader” in the design and manufacture of thin, flat supercapacitors. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM market, and is incorporated, with headquarters and manufacturing in Australia. The company announced it had raised some 2.68million GBP in a retail offer in May this year.
Tesla acquired Maxwell Technologies in 2019, reportedly due to an interest in the company’s intellectual property’s applications for the Tesla Cybertruck, which is yet to have an official launch date per Tesla’s latest Q2 earnings call as the company continues to bring together the numerous new technologies needed to make it.