By Blake Brittain
(Reuters) - Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) sued Australian company Cap-XX in Texas federal court on Friday, claiming its supercapacitors used for storing energy in electric-vehicle batteries infringe two U.S. patents owned by a Tesla subsidiary.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk pledged in 2014 not to "initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology." The company says the legal action comes in response to a lawsuit that Cap-XX originally filed against Tesla subsidiary Maxwell Technologies in 2019 for patent infringement.
"Maxwell has a history of innovation that has resulted in its own patents, now assigned to Tesla, and thus Tesla brings this suit against Cap-XX to protect its intellectual property rights," the lawsuit said.
Representatives for Tesla and Cap-XX did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Tesla acquired Maxwell in 2019. Like Cap-XX, Maxwell makes capacitors for electric vehicles that increase their energy-storage capabilities. The patents that Cap-XX allegedly infringed relate to electrodes used in supercapacitors, which Tesla called the "primary source of the device's power capabilities."
Tesla said the electrodes used in Cap-XX's supercapacitors work in the same way as Maxwell's patented technology. It asked the court for an unspecified amount of money damages.
Cap-XX's ongoing lawsuit in Delaware federal court accuses Maxwell of infringing its own supercapacitor patents.