OSLO (Reuters) – A German court has halted proceedings against warehouse robot maker AutoStore in the company’s latest patent row with British rival Ocado Group, the Norwegian firm said in a statement on Friday.
Shares of AutoStore, which last month suffered a legal setback https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/ocado-wins-patent-infringement-trial-itc-against-autostore-2021-12-14 in the United States in a lawsuit of its own against Ocado, surged 15% in early Oslo trade before paring gains to trade up 2.4% at 0913 GMT.
The companies, both of which provide labour-saving storage technology to the fast-growing online shopping industry, have for years been locked in a series of legal battles https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-autostore-ocado-lawsuit-idUSKBN26M5VO over intellectual property (IP) rights.
“The Munich District Court yesterday stayed proceedings brought by Ocado for orders blocking the sale of AutoStore’s B1 robot in Germany, noting that Ocado’s utility model IP rights in the action were likely to be invalid,” AutoStore said.
“The court’s view was that Ocado were trying to claim technology they had not invented,” it added.
Ocado was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Reuters. The company’s shares traded down 4.3% in London.
A third patent case between the two rivals is still ongoing in Britain.
AutoStore, whose biggest owner is Japan’s SoftBank, went public in October and its shares initially rose sharply. They have since fallen, however, partly as a result of the U.S. legal setback, and is down 47% from its November peak.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo and James Davey in London; editing by Jason Neely)
