It's interesting how Amazon is embedding robots in human-designed warehouses whereas Ocado has humans overseeing a robotic warehouse.
The later is a much easier problem.
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The later is a much easier problem.
They purchased an AutoStore, then reverse engineered it, made a few changes, and claimed it as their own invention.
This seems difficult to square with your claim that Ocado "just copied AutoStore". (I suppose it's not quite inconsistent with it; maybe Ocado copied a pile of things that AutoStore never patented, and the patented bits were always a sideshow?)
Also, from the comments:
"My favorite thing about this is how 2 weeks after this video went up, they had an accident where two robots collided and caused a gigantic fire that cost them like 50 million dollars."
I just looked at videos of the two technologies and it seems difficult to ignore the relationship.
Perhaps this is a case of "technically correct", i.e. that they technically did not infringe the patents, but that in practice they leveraged as much as they could around the patent claims?
Amazon uses a lot higher stacked spaces than Ocado does.
Are there any real numbers you can reference than just stating that Ocados way is better?
Wonder if the matter has been resolved.
A system that works well with 15 robots will often fall apart if scaled up to 150 or 1500 robots. Reliability, planning algorithm complexity, radio performance, all sorts of issues start to come up.
That’s why Hatteland patented the autostore tech in ~1995 and by the time the patents expired they only supported ~100 robots.
It’s not always easy to appreciate, because everyone publicises when they install a new automation system, but nobody publicises it if they scrap it 18 months later. Being discreet about it is better for the share price.
Of course there’s still a perfectly good market for less scalable automation; grocery just has crazy financials.
Robots also get cheaper over time because we learn. You can buy many parts in bulk including computer libraries to control them. You can find many people who know best practices who will not make some of the early mistakes that cost money.
Ocado's initial patents as well were actually modifications of Autostore's robots, running on an Autostore grid, and Autostore manufactured the robots to Ocado's specification before Ocado decided to build the whole thing themselves.
So hard to argue that it wasn't a copy.
IMO I think the UK patent victory was a bit of a joke... Ocado's innovation of the robot above a single cell is both obvious, but also has it's own obvious downsides.
It’s a shame that the problems being solved are embedded within a business that embodies throwing things away at the first sign of weakness. I’m still upset they bought what seemed on track to be a nice successor to Simple Bank. Now it’s been pivoted again for the third time since acquisition.
One of these things can be fixed, the other will always be a risk as long as humans are involved.
Interesting to know companies are still using them as a means to automate their work.
That's correct, the second one can get fixed with higher wages and benefits, like when Ford introduced the “$5 a day” (doubling market average).
Their patents were invalidated in the U.S. due to "inequitable conduct or equitable estoppel" meaning either that Autostore violated someone else's patents or that they led Ocado to believe that Ocado was not violating Autostore's patents in some way. Both parties indicate that the latter happened, but the usual remedy is just a mandatory license, so the invalidation of the patents indicates that the former also occurred. (https://www.autostoresystem.com/investors-press-releases/aut...)
Once you've thought that through, apply the same reasoning to human beings in general, not just white-collar HN denizens. Few people want to work a hard blue-collar job for the same reason you and I don't want to: we have better things to do with our time.
On the other hand you can always hire more People to sort more packages. You don’t even need a building, a tent would suffice.
What these companies do is conceptually very simple. Basically sortation of items at different granularities and locations. Not comparable with manufacturing companies.
* 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.
You defended your perspective by arguing, correctly, that people take undesirable jobs because they don't have a choice. We agree there as well, and my point is that this is a form of coercion in itself. The status quo treats humans as if they were robots.
(And I really don't care if someone thinks I live in a cave. Life in my cave is actually pretty comfy. It beats the hell out of a warehouse or a cube maze at a click farm. It's a privilege, one I'd like to see more equitably distributed.)
> 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.