Teradyne unit Common Robots just lately displayed its cell manipulator with a UR cobot arm at MODEX. Supply: Teradyne
Because the Hannover Messe commerce present started in Germany this week, the Regional Courtroom of Hamburg has issued a preliminary injunction towards Elite Robots Deutschland GmbH as Teradyne Robotics A/S sues it for copyright infringement.
Teradyne Robotics, a subsidiary of Teradyne Inc., had begun authorized proceedings towards Elite Robots’ Germany subsidiary final month. It had already despatched a cease-and-desist letter accusing the Chinese language force- and power-limited robotic maker of infringing on the proprietary software program of Common Robots A/S, a Teradyne unit and cobot market chief.
“At Teradyne Robotics, we have chosen to take a stand against any competitors copying our proprietary hardware or software design, and we are of course pleased with this ruling,” acknowledged Jean-Pierre Hathout, president of the Teradyne Robotics Group. “We believe we have irrefutable evidence of copyright infringement and, while this is not a final ruling from the court, it is a clear indication that we have a very strong case.”
Teradyne screens infringement risk
“The reason we started looking into this is because of increasing competition from lots of small companies,” David Brandt, vice chairman of analysis and improvement and the chief know-how officer at Odense, Denmark-based Common Robots, informed The Robotic Report.
David Brandt, CTO of Common Robots. Supply: LinkedIn
“There are a lot of cheap variants of collaborative robots entering the market,” he famous. “One of those we looked at was from Elite, and it was clear that it looked very much like our own. Our team in the U.S. looked at the software, and it was something very close to our software in their robots.”
“We believe we have strong evidence,” Brandt added. “We’re not doing this because we’re against healthy competition; this is about stealing technology. We welcome competition, which makes us all strive to be better, but competing against companies with our own technology crosses the line.”
Brandt informed Danish newspaper Børsen that Elite Robots included a setting that allowed customers to disable security settings. Teradyne Robotics has warned security authorities in Denmark, Germany, and the U.S.
The Robotic Report has reached out to Elite Robots, nevertheless it has not but responded. Based in 2016, the Shanghai firm has expanded into Western markets and claimed to have greater than 10,000 deployments throughout greater than 35 nations, in addition to over 200 patents and IP property.
Courtroom orders Elite Robots to offer data
In response to the courtroom’s resolution, Elite Robots Germany is straight away prohibited from providing or distributing the infringing software program and all merchandise containing this software program in Germany till additional discover. Teradyne attorneys have reportedly requested the corporate to close down its exhibit at Hannover Messe.
As well as, the courtroom ordered Elite Robots Germany to offer complete details about the infringing acts it has dedicated and to reveal details about the purchasers it has equipped. No courtroom date has but been set.
Teradyne Robotics stated it intends to take authorized motion towards Elite Robots’ distributors and companions in the event that they proceed to supply the infringing software program.
“Automation and innovation are crucial to our industrial future,” stated Hathout. “We cannot passively allow companies to unlawfully copy protected technologies. This not only hampers research and innovation, but also undermines customer experience and confidence.”
“Teradyne Robotics stays absolutely dedicated to defending our mental property and to making sure automation clients have entry to the protected, revolutionary, and high-quality options they deserve,” he added.
Teradyne claims that Elite Robots’ cobots and software program are similar to its personal. Supply: Elite Robots
Authorized disputes escalate as competitors intensifies
As world competitors intensifies in robotics and AI, it’s no shock that mental property disputes have elevated. As an example, at LogiMAT final month, Ocado referred to as German police to close down Brightpick‘s sales space beneath an injunction for alleged patent infringement.
Nonetheless, the authorities didn’t discover any violations, and Brightpick was in a position to show its cell selecting robots with out incident for the rest of that occasion and at MODEX final week. Ocado had settled one other patent dispute with AutoStore in 2023.
In February 2026, a Chinese language courtroom dismissed Luweimei Co.’s claims towards legged robotic maker Unitree. Additionally in legged robots, Boston Dynamics final 12 months resolved a patent lawsuit with Ghost Robotics.
In lots of of those instances, corporations in numerous nations have accused each other of copying mental property.
“Teradyne Robotics has been hit hard by weak growth in European industrial production, which contracted by 2.5% in 2024,” famous Børsen. “The company lost 15.5% of its revenue last year, on turnover of approximately DKK 2 billion [$310 million U.S.].”
Whereas the put in base of commercial robots has fallen in Europe and the U.S., in keeping with the Worldwide Federation of Robotics (IFR), greater than half of all robots put in in 2024 have been in China. The VDMA Robotics + Automation Affiliation in February warned that Germany is falling behind in robotics.
The put up German courtroom guidelines in favor of Teradyne Robotics, points injunction towards Elite Robots appeared first on The Robotic Report.
