Ocado Group PLC (LSE:OCDO) hailed a decision by an international patent court to rule against 'robot wars' rival AutoStore on all claims.
In a case brought by AutoStore against Ocado, the International Trade Commission rejected all 33 claims.
Following an initial legal decision in December that found Ocado had infringed the patents asserted by AutoStore, the Commission ruled that the Norwegian company's cavity bot patents were invalid.
AutoStore said today that it intends to appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
An Ocado spokesperson said the ITC's decision "comprehensively confirms the judge's original findings last December".
"All 33 of the patent claims asserted against Ocado have now been confirmed for a second time to be either invalid or not infringed, demonstrating again how misguided AutoStore's complaint has been. The ITC investigation is now at its end."
A UK High Court hearing of AutoStore’s patent infringement claim against Ocado begins next Tuesday, 15 March and is set to last four weeks in total, with the initial part of the hearing scheduled for 15 to 22 March.
The Ocado spokesperson said "we expect further vindication in the High Court in London in the weeks ahead, where AutoStore has already abandoned half of the patents in the case".
AutoStore said the outcome of the proceedings "has no effect" on its global operations, saying that it has "secured hundreds of patents since its founding" and stressed that the December determination found that Ocado Smart Platform infringes on three of AutoStore’s patents but the patents "were invalid based on a narrow legal issue" and "also rejected Ocado’s assertion that the patents are unenforceable due to inequitable conduct or equitable estoppel".
For its part, Ocado said it is continuing to "actively" pursue its claims against AutoStore for infringement of its IP rights in both the US and Europe, including its antitrust "Walker Process" claim against AutoStore in East Virginia and its infringement of five Ocado patents in New Hampshire.