Member Info for Rocka999

We only know what we know, Hattelands case was successful in Norway but who would have bet against it? The claim lodged after the Kroger deal was announced, big bucks involved so maybe no surprise ?

Ocado have already come out and said they've received no papers in relation to these claims and are not aware of any infringement of any valid Autostore rights, as I said it appears any patents have expired here until I see otherwise ?

Its interesting that there was an ongoing legal case going on in Norway but Ocado had no knowledge of it, indeed no one appears to have had knowledge of it unless you were working for Hatteland maybe or the Norwegian legal system ? You usually get a sniff of these things but it appears that the market was totally unaware also?

I believe if you go back 5 years or more the Norwegians raised a challenge then over 5 of the 44 Ocado patent applications but nothing has come of it that I'm aware of

Also remember Ocado has the superior product so is ahead in the technology stakes.

I see that Autostore's grid system was granted a patent in 1998 which lasts 20 years, the patent is only protected for 14 years in the US so I don't believe anything will come of the legal case that has been brought forward for this, again I'm not a patent expert. I can't see any Autostore patent on the UK site as it only goes back to 2006 so again the patent appears to have expired.

"A court in Norway has already found that AutoStore is entitled to ownership of its patents covering the robots' central cavity technology" this is interesting until you know that Hatteland is based in Norway so go figure ?

There may be something around the design of the bots as the Hatteland patents are much more up to date here, Tharsus build Ocado's bots which I believe are superior to Hattelands and any patent infinrgement may lie here ?

Sounds like this has been going on since the Kroger deal was signed so Autostore clearly spooked, appears just to centre on the bots.

Kroger will have done their due diligence before agreeing the deal, especially as they bought over 5% of Ocado

I don't believe investors actually look at a spread or cash in the bank when they invest, an investment of £1000 here would leave you £250 poorer with one click and that excludes the dealing fees in the vain hope that the company is going somewhere that it hasn't managed to get to in its existence?

I'd looked into the patents several years ago now when the first sketched designs came out for the OSP and they are similar to Autostore, that's obvious for anyone to see. I understand Ocado wanted to do a deal with the then Jakob Hatteland who owned Autostore but got ignored so Ocado built its own robots. After signing up Morrisons Hatteland sold his stakes in both of his companies to EQT. I'm no expert on patent infringement but patents are only protected for a period of time depending in which country the patent applies to, so this could be Norway only or a group on countries as part of an agreed treaty, also a patent in the UK for instance has to be paid for annually so it doesn't lapse. Autostore it appears was first conceived in 1990 so a patent over this period of time may have elapsed by now anyway. This is not the first time this patent shout has come about and I wasn't too worried previously I seem to recall, in fact the OSP to me seemed a far superior product which is probably why Autostore are now rattled with Ocado signing new deals globally. I believe there's more to this than meets the eye but we'll see what develops if anything thought the courts although these matters can drag on for a long time.

I can recall Warren Buffet investing in Tesco, I wonder how that sound investment turned out ?

Remember what happened to the last TR1, see my comments at the time !

More cannon fodder I see.....

I see M&S as a sleeping giant, they're going in the right direction now albeit a bit late in the day, one to watch !

They could de-list and save their own skins, we shall see...

Can't be bad news ?

If they believe theyre no longer solvent then yes it is bad news, remember they had very little cash and were living off the proceeds of their shareholders for a long time

Traffic to Ocado’s website surged to its highest level since April in the first week of its joint venture with Marks & Spencer.

Figures revealed in Retail Week’s latest Coronavirus Consumer Pulse monitor revealed that an average of 293,300 shoppers visited Ocado.com every day during the week beginning August 30.

According to the data compiled by online intelligence platform SimilarWeb and analytics specialist The Smart Cube, the total marked a 20.6% increase in web hits week on week.

It was also the busiest week Ocado had experienced since the seven days beginning April 26, when more than 310,000 consumers visited its website every day.

Totally agree Owls, this has been by far the best share I've ever purchased, always made me money which I've mainly invested into property now but still have a small holding to play with. Currently looking for another opportunity like Ocado but they don't come along often

I’d like to have seen an Ocado/Tesco partnership as Morrisons are lightweight plus also in bed with Amazon

This speaks volumes, those stores will be weighing heavy on the balance sheet...

There may be no further news imminent, doesn't mean to say there's nothing going on.....

It smacks of a quick fix to get more online sales going to me, there's no future in it. The more CFC's built by Ocado the less supermarkets we will see in the long term, the numbers are now pointing to this, the trend is your friend remember

Online shopping hit another record market share in the latest four weeks, with nearly 14% of all grocery sales now via the internet.

Ocado PLC has been a "major beneficiary of this", said Kantar, registering a market share of 1.8% over the past 12 weeks - versus 1.4% a year ago - and surpassing peers to post sales growth of 46% in Kantar's latest report.

Scott commented: "In the latest 12 weeks all of the major retailers registered overall take-home sales growth. However, all bar Ocado saw that growth slow compared with July."

Good long term play, always has been imo

Still lots of questions, they're obviously still desperately short of cash following the government grant, bounce back loan and now the loan notes just to get another delayed project over the line (and pay their inflated salaries)

CCCAL loans them £100,000 at 7% interest but when you ask who's on the board of that company no ones interested even though through research we know they're associates of a certain MDZ director, I'd take 7% of a loan any day when the mug punters here are paying for it lol

No long term value here for shareholders, there never has been.................