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?)
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?
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.
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...)
* 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.
> 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.