A piece of solar safety equipment that was the subject of a fight over patent rights has emerged from the dust-up with both sides claiming at least partial victory.

The fight was over rapid shutdown technology, a safety function for rooftop mounted solar photovoltaic systems that is designed to reduce the risk of electrical shock to emergency responders. Rapid shutdown is widely mandated by building codes and regulatory bodies around the U.S.

At the heart of the dispute was a specification put forward by the SunSpec Alliance, a San Jose, Calif., based open information standards and certification organization for the distributed energy resources industry. Tigo Energy alleged that SunSpec and some of its member companies infringed on its patents, referred to in shorthand as the “‘321 and ‘770” patents. 

In two February 2022 filings