In the City, shares in Ocado have jumped by over 11% to their highest level since January, after it reached a deal with Norwegian robotics firm AutoStore over patent litigation claims.
Under the deal, announced last weekend, AutoStore will pay £200m to Ocado.
They will also have “complete freedom” to access and use technology covered by each other’s pre-2020 patents, and can continue to use and market their own existing products without risk of infringing each other’s post-2020 patents.
This litigation has hung over Ocado since October 2020, when Autostore filed a case arguing the UK firm had infringed six of its patents relating to its use of robots to retrieve goods from warehouses.
