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iRobot wins lawsuit against Robotic FX
It's been a long, winding, shady road, but the lawsuits between iRobot and Robotic FX are finally over, with a federal court in Massachusetts ruling the Robotic FX had stolen iRobot's trade secrets, and another federal court in Alabama ruling that Robotic FX had infringed on iRobot's patents. In addition, the Massachusetts court ruled that Robotic FX had destroyed evidence and violated fair trade practices. iRobot has agreed to buy "certain residual assets" of Robotic FX, which is dissolving as of today, and founder Jameel Ahed is barred from competing in the robotics industry for five years. iRobot says all this litigation cost the company $2.9 million -- that's some expensive dumpster diving.
iRobot awarded $286 million military contract
In a shocking tale of totally expected events, iRobot has been awarded a tidy $286 million army contract to produce a merciless, bone-crushing battalion of 3,000 peaceful, loving, bomb-disarming robots (and their spare parts). This comes hot on the heels of Robotic FX getting its walking papers (as well as a canceled contract) on the same military work, so we can't exactly say we're surprised. Just another chapter in the ever-unfolding legal and philosophical drama that is the iRobot / Robotic FX story. iRobot -- this round is all yours.
Army: "The Robotic FX contract is no longer in existence"
A bad weekend for Robotic FX could mean good things for iRobot. On Friday, the US Army canceled its $280 million order for up to 3,000 of Robotic FX's bomb-detecting robots. According to Joanne Byrd, the Army administrator overseeing the contract, "The Robotic FX contract is no longer in existence." Harsh, and a tad confusing if you accept the fundamental axiom that existence exists. She did cite "peripheral complications" as the reason without going into detail. Though we're pretty sure that iRobot's injunction against Robotic FX had something to do with it. The move opens the door to iRobot as the next-lowest, qualified bidder for the XBot contract. Great. Perhaps when everyone is done futzing about with their lawyers and lobbyists we might actually get a few bots deployed to protect the innocents?[Via Xconomy, thanks Jonas]
iRobot wins injunction against Robotic FX
iRobot's soap-opera-esque trade secret and patent lawsuits against rival Robotic FX entered a new phase last night, as the US District Court in Boston handed down a preliminary injunction preventing Robot FX from acting on a $279M contract to build Negotiator robots for the Department of Defense. Saying that Robotic FX CEO Jameel Ahed's admissions that he'd destroyed evidence "profoundly undermined" his credibility, the judge ruled that there was enough of a likelihood that iRobot would win its trade secret case to warrant an injunction -- the idea being to keep Robotic FX from gaining any benefits from a possible theft. The judge didn't make the exact terms of the injunction public, but she did order a trial to begin no later than April 4 -- which means there's still a lot of drama to come.[Thanks, Jonas]
