* Ocado started modifying their own installation. AutoStore gave them the rights to do this naively thinking it was for their own use.
* Ocado started aggressively patenting their own modifications.
* Ocado then decides it’s going to build everything themselves, and also start selling their own version of the solution and compete directly with Autostore.
* Then the legal battle begins!
Broadly the main thing in contention is that Ocado patented the concept of the robot sitting above a single cell (ie tote). Autostore thinks this is obvious and shouldn’t have been allowed - their main reason for usually implementing a lower robot that sits across two cells is that it’s more reliable (lower centre of mass, simplified mechanics) but that they have now been blocked from just doing a smaller design of their original invention.
Autostore were probably naive at the time (they were still reasonably new to the automation market) and Ocado definitely had better patent lawyers - or at least as they were UK based had a better grip of UK patent law.
That can't possibly be what happened. First to file would not allow Ocado to have patented the concept of the robot sitting above a cell/tote as that was already part of the system they got and copied/reverse-engineered from AutoStore. Indeed, if what you hypothesized had happened, Ocado would be the poster child for an immediate return to the first-to-invent system as this would be precisely the scenario that critics were warning about: an unscrupulous licensor "stealing" an invention from the actual inventor.
Why can't it? I think you may have slightly misread my post in terms of the single cell aspect.
> First to file would not allow Ocado to have patented the concept of the robot sitting above a cell/tote
Ocado patented the concept of a robot sitting above a single cell/tote, not the concept of the robot sitting above a cell/tote.
AutoStore's initial system was the first to have the robot sitting above a stack of totes, however the robot sat above two cells in it's original design (a 'cantilever design'). The settlement actually means that AutoStore cannot develop a robot sitting above a single cell/tote (note that their blackline robots sit across a 'tote and a bit' because of this - see image https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/autostore-sues-oc...).
There is lots of historical complexity as with all patent cases, but the AutoStore loss in court doesn't mean that Ocado didn't copy them - it just means that Ocado have been judged to be legally allowed to copy them IMO :)
> Ocado would be the poster child [for being] an unscrupulous licensor "stealing" an invention from the actual inventor.
They absolutely are the poster child for this in the material handling world! This is widely known in the logistics industry.
* AutoStore sold a solution to Ocado
* Ocado started modifying their own installation. AutoStore gave them the rights to do this naively thinking it was for their own use.
* Ocado started aggressively patenting their own modifications.
* Ocado then decides it’s going to build everything themselves, and also start selling their own version of the solution and compete directly with Autostore.
* Then the legal battle begins!
Broadly the main thing in contention is that Ocado patented the concept of the robot sitting above a single cell (ie tote). Autostore thinks this is obvious and shouldn’t have been allowed - their main reason for usually implementing a lower robot that sits across two cells is that it’s more reliable (lower centre of mass, simplified mechanics) but that they have now been blocked from just doing a smaller design of their original invention.
Autostore were probably naive at the time (they were still reasonably new to the automation market) and Ocado definitely had better patent lawyers - or at least as they were UK based had a better grip of UK patent law.