cado is to be paid £200 million in a deal with Norwegian company AutoStore which accused it of breaching its patents.
In a statement on Saturday, Ocado Group plc, the automated supermarket company, said it and AutoStore have settled their long-running dispute over robot patents.
A High Court judge ruled in March that AutoStore’s “patents were invalid” and that, regardless, Ocado did not infringe them.
In 2020 AutoStore tried to protect six patents that it said Ocado had breached, and launched a legal battle.
Ocado have announced that AutoStore is to pay them £200 million, in 24 monthly instalments starting in July 2023, under the new settlement.
I am pleased that we have worked together to resolve our differences and can now continue to focus on what we do best, innovating, developing and enabling partners to access world-beating technology
Ocado said that both sides were withdrawing their actions against each other and had reached a deal in which both firms have freedom to access and use technology covered by each other’s pre-2020 patents.
Tim Steiner, Ocado Group chief executive, said: “I am pleased that we have worked together to resolve our differences and can now continue to focus on what we do best, innovating, developing and enabling partners to access world-beating technology.”
Neill Abrams, group general counsel and company secretary, added: “I’m delighted that this litigation has now ended on satisfactory terms.”
The full terms of the settlement are confidential but Ocado said that both firms are allowed to continue to use and market their own existing products without challenge of infringement of the other’s post-2020 patents.
It added that AutoStore is not permitted to make or use a single-space cavity robot in any jurisdiction where Ocado has patent protection.
The deal also gives access to part of each party’s patent portfolio for them to use or develop their own products but this does not mean there will be collaboration, technology assistance or access to actual products.
When it first announced its claims, AutoStore said Ocado was using some of its patented robot technology.
Deals that the automated supermarket company had with Marks & Spencer and Morrisons and Kroger in the US infringed on the patents, AutoStore claimed.
The company had asked for the courts to ban Ocado from using the technology in future and was seeking compensation.