PTAB denies AutoStore review of Ocado robot patents
Norwegian robotics firm AutoStore has failed to persuade the US Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to reexamine Ocado’s robot-operated warehouse system patent.
AutoStore had filed for an inter partes review of Ocado’s patent, contending that several of the claims require construction.
For the review to be granted, AutoStore needed to prove a reasonable likelihood of its challenge succeeding, but fell short, according to a decision published on Friday.
The PTAB held that only the phrase “structural framework defining a grid of storage locations” found in claims 1 and 23 require construction.
Ocado held that the word “grid” referred to a “grating of crossed bars” and the structure requires that the “structural framework” define the grid of storage locations.
AutoStore argued that the “core dispute” of the claim construction is what “grid” refers to and because “grid” modifies the phrase “storage locations”, the claims require only that the storage location must be arranged in a grid pattern.
AutoStore’s IPR petition stated that Ocado’s patent “claimed nothing new”, only covering an automated storage and retrieval system where one container is put within another and then stored within a system—a system which AutoStore claims it “pioneered long before the ‘080 patent was filed”.
This is the latest chapter in an international patent dispute between the two firms, which has prompted ongoing litigating in the UK, US, and Germany.
Ocado litigation
The legal dispute started when AutoStore began marketing two new products in 2020, a software product called Router and its Blackline robot. AutoStore then launched litigation against Ocado and two of its suppliers claiming patent infringement.
Ocado filed a defence in the English High Court in December 2020, stating that it had not infringed on any AutoStore patents and that AutoStore’s patents were invalid. Ocado followed up with an infringement suit against AutoStore in a New Hampshire District Court in January 2021.
Most recently, Ocado filed complaints against AutoStore’s European subsidiaries in Munich, targeting the Blackline robot for infringement of Ocado utility model IP rights.
Ocado said in a statement: “We are entirely confident in the integrity of our IP portfolio and the disciplined approach we have taken to build our capabilities and the Ocado Smart Platform over the past 20 years. We will always vigorously protect our IP.”
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