Autostore and Ocado have reached agreement in a patent dispute

Global Courant

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To update!

The companies announced this in a stock market report on Saturday afternoon.

The two companies have been involved in several legal patent disputes related to automated warehouse solutions over several years and have now reached a settlement. This means that all claims and allegations in legal disputes between the two battle roosters are now dropped.

The parties do not share all the terms of the settlement, but some of them are highlighted in the stock exchange announcement: Autostore must pay Ocado £200 million over the next 24 months, which amounts to NOK 2.5 billion, among other things.

– We are pleased to have reached an agreement that gives both companies the opportunity and freedom to commercialize our extensive patent portfolios. This settlement resolves our differences and allows us to continue to focus on our respective operational goals, Mats Hovland Vikse, CEO of Autostore, said in the post.

Complete freedom

In addition, both companies have complete freedom to use technology covered by either company’s pre-2020 patents. The two companies are also allowed to use and market their own products based on post-2020 patents without the risk of infringement.

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The two companies will also gain access to parts of each other’s patents, and use them in their own products if they wish.

Another condition is that Autostore is not allowed to make or use a certain type of warehouse robot in all jurisdictions where Ocado has patent protection.

– I am pleased that we managed to reach an agreement in a constructive and cooperative manner. We can now move forward and focus on bringing leading technology to our partners, said Tim Steiner, CEO of Ocado.

Several years of “skirmishes”

The litigation began in 2020, when Autostore sued Ocado Group for patent infringement on several of their technologies.

Ocado is actually a company that delivers groceries to the door, a bit like Oda here at home.

In 2012, the company looked around for storage solutions and met with Autostore for negotiations. The cooperation did not last long: after a short time the atmosphere soured and Ocado took the basic concept of Autostore home and adapted it to its own needs.

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For example, it developed its own version of Autostore’s robot warehouse concept: a square grid that saves the air between the shelves in a normal warehouse and stacks the goods high. The robots whiz around upstairs, picking up boxes as needed.

There have been minor skirmishes between the two companies over the years, but in 2020 the robot war really started when Autostore launched several international lawsuits against Ocado.

More than half a billion kroner was spent

The Norwegian company has put a lot on the line – Autostore’s costs related to the lawsuits exceed half a billion kroner, spread over 2021 and 2022.

– We will not tolerate Ocado’s repeated violations of our patent rights in their effort to grow faster and become a global technology company, then CEO Karl Johan Lier said when the news broke.

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Across the Atlantic, Autostore has charged Ocado with 33 patent infringements, but the ITC, the International Trade Commission, has dismissed the charges twice.

Over the years, Autostore has been able to sell its robot solutions at margins of up to 50 percent, as well as signaling the market to stay high. In this regard, it was critical to secure the patents that make the company so lucrative.

– The money and energy they put into the patent case says something about how important they think it is. But there are several barriers to entry around their model, which are also key here, Carnegie brokerage firm analyst Eirik Rafdal told DN last spring. (Conditions)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases through links that lead directly to our pages. Copying or other use of any part of the content may only take place with written permission or as permitted by law. For further conditions see here.

Autostore and Ocado have reached agreement in a patent dispute

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