Ocado sued for infringing robot technology patents
Online supermarket Ocado has been accused of infringing technology patents with its Ocado Smart Platform (OSP), which the £20bn company uses to market to food retailers around the world.
In the complaints filed with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the English High Court, Norway-based AutoStore has alleged that Ocado signed agreements with retailers such as Kroger, Marks & Spencer and Morrisons for the use of technology systems that infringe AutoStore’s IP.
In a statement, the robotics technology company has claimed that Ocado’s infringement of AutoStore’s IP, including the storage system and robots, “is the foundation on which the OSP was built and on which Ocado’s business today is based”.
According to AutoStore, its patented robotic technology picks grocery orders within a warehouse, in which storage bins are stacked vertically in a grid and stored in a cubic structure, with the bins retrieved by robots that travel on the top of the structure.
The company has stated that Ocado infringed patents relating to “the fundamental central cavity design of its robotic technology; the arrangement of the lifting mechanism that enables those robots to lift and place bins in their cavities; and the robots’ in-wheel motors”.
AutoStore has sought orders barring Ocado and its partners from manufacturing and selling the disputed products in the UK and US, and importing them into the US, as well as financial damages.
The complaint filed with the ITC also names Printed Motor Works of Hampshire, UK, an Ocado supplier, as a respondent.
In the statement, Karl Johan Lier, CEO and president of AutoStore, said: “Since 1996, AutoStore has developed and pioneered technology that has revolutionised retail storage and order fulfillment, and is driving the growth of online retail.”
He added: “Our ownership of the technology at the heart of Ocado’s warehousing system is clear. We will not tolerate Ocado’s continued infringement of our IP rights in its effort to boost its growth and attempt to transform itself into a global technology company.”
In the statement, AutoStore also drew attention to a 2017 Norwegian court finding that held it was entitled to ownership of its patents covering the robots’ central cavity technology, and claimed that despite this ruling, “Ocado has continued to pursue lucrative partnerships by selling that technology – as well as other AutoStore-owned technology – as its own”.
Ocado shares fell by 5 per cent in early afternoon trading yesterday, following the statement by AutoStore.
AutoStore supports more than 500 installations and 18,000 robots across 30 countries, in markets from grocery and healthcare to aviation for customers including ASDA (UK), Best Buy (US), and Lufthansa (Germany).
WIPR has approached Ocado for comment.
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