Wyze wants US court to save it from Amazon delisting
Wyze is facing one of its robot vacuums being delisted from Amazon unless it can convince a US court it hasn’t infringed a Xiaomi and Rockrobo patent.
The home tech manufacturer wants the US District Court for the Western District of Washington to declare the patent invalid and not infringed by Wyze’s robot vacuum cleaner.
According to the complaint, filed July 15, Rockrobo contacted Amazon directly last month, accusing Wyze of infringing the patent. Amazon subsequently informed Wyze that if it didn’t resolve the dispute, or engage in the platform’s “neutral evaluation process”, the product would be delisted.
The 2019 patent, covering an “autonomous cleaning product”, is assigned to both Rockrobo and Xiaomi, which have collaborated on products in the past. Wyze claims it is invalid in light of a 2014 PCT application, which it says already disclosed the key limitations of the patented device. In addition to its invalidity arguments, Wyze contends that its device doesn’t infringe any claims of the Xiaomi/Rockrobo patent.
Wyze told the court that it tried to resolve the claims after Amazon warned it of its product’s potential delisting, but that Rockrobo was uncooperative: “Counsel for Rockrobo indicated that they were unwilling to discuss resolution of its infringement allegations with counsel for Wyze and, further, would not provide Wyze a copy of the infringement report Rockrobo had provided to Amazon.”
Wyze has subsequently asked the court to declare the IP invalid and/or non-infringed: “Such a determination and declaration is necessary and appropriate at this time. In light of Rockrobo’s enforcement actions, without such relief, Wyze will suffer harm, including the potential delisting of the accused product from Amazon.com.”
US courts have dealt with plenty of patent claims related to robot vacuums over the past few years, as more competing products come to market.
Among the most high-profile of these disputes is that between iRobot, which manufacturers the Roomba range, and SharkNinja. The pair, which both specialise in artificial intelligence-powered robot vacuums, have faced off in US federal courts and the US International Trade Commission.
SharkNinja says iRobot has wrongly accused it of IP infringement, and is fighting to prevent a potential ITC order barring it from importing certain products for sale in the US.
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