iRobot ends patent litigation against Hoover
American technology company iRobot has agreed to end its patent litigation against vacuum cleaner manufacturers Hoover, Black & Decker, and Bobsweep.
iRobot, which is behind the Roomba brand of automatic, robotic vacuum cleaners, sued the companies in 2017.
In the suits, iRobot accused them of infringing its patents covering the technology used in the Roomba products.
In the Black & Decker lawsuit, iRobot alleged that the company had infringed three of its patents; for a “robot obstacle detection system” (US number 7,155,308); an “autonomous floor-cleaning robot” (8,474,090); and a “method and system for multi-mode coverage for an autonomous robot” (6,809,490).
That case focused on Black & Decker’s BDH5000 vacuum cleaner. The suit named Chinese company Shenzhen Silver Star Intelligent Technology (SSSIT), which manufactured the BDH5000 for Black & Decker, as a defendant in the case.
iRobot also accused Hoover’s Quest 1000 automatic vacuum cleaner of infringing the three patents, as well as three others (US numbers 8,600,553; 9,038,233; and 9,486,924). SSSIT was also named as a defendant.
Bobsweep, which also manufactures robotic vacuum cleaners, was accused of infringing the ‘490, ‘233, ‘090, and ‘308 patents.
According to orders issued by the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the lawsuits have now been voluntarily dismissed without prejudice.
Terms of any settlement have not been disclosed.
In November 2018, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) found that nine companies, including Hoover, Black & Decker, Bobsweep and SSSIT had infringed iRobot’s IP.
That investigation, initiated at the behest of iRobot, focused on the import of “robotic vacuum cleaning devices and components thereof such as spare parts”.
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