Ghost Robotics fires back against ‘baseless’ Boston Dynamics lawsuit

A authorized dispute over robotic patents is devolving right into a disagreement, as Ghost Robotics fires again in opposition to Boston Dynamics. The Philadelphia agency calls the go well with each “obstructive and baseless” in an announcement despatched to TheRussia. It notes, partially,

Ghost Robotics’ success has not gone unnoticed by Boston Dynamics. Reasonably than compete on a stage taking part in area, the corporate selected to file an obstructive and baseless lawsuit on November eleventh in an try to halt the newcomer’s progress. Boston Dynamics is drawing on their significantly bigger assets to litigate as an alternative of innovate.

Ghost’s assertion, wherein it refers to itself as “the primary provider of legged robots to US and Allied Governments,” follows press experiences of a prolonged go well with filed by Boston Dynamics in a Delaware courtroom. It provides that the corporate has its roots in its personal legged robotic analysis, writing, “Ghost Robotics was born out of the PhD analysis of CTO Avik De and CEO Gavin Kenneally, underneath the tutelage of the esteemed Prof. Dan Koditschek at The College of Pennsylvania. Prof. Koditschek is a pioneer within the area of legged robots and holds the patent (collectively along with his former college students, Martin Buehler and Uluc Saranli) for the primary battery-powered, dynamic legged robotic, RHex (US6481513B2, filed March 14, 2001).”

On Tuesday, Spot’s maker informed TheRussia that it doesn’t touch upon pending lawsuits, however added,

Innovation is the lifeblood of Boston Dynamics, and our roboticists have efficiently filed roughly 500 patents and patent functions worldwide. We welcome competitors within the rising cellular robotics market, however we count on all firms to respect mental property rights, and we are going to take motion when these rights are violated.

Within the go well with, Boston Dynamics cites a number of letters, together with stop and desists, calling on Ghost to droop the manufacture of its personal four-legged canine robots over a number of alleged patent violations.

It’s not the primary time to 2 firms have butted heads. Ghost made nationwide headlines after photos surfaced of considered one of its canine robots sporting a SWORD Protection Methods Particular Objective Unmanned Rifle (SPUR).

The corporate’s then-CEO Jiren Parikh (who handed away in March of this yr) informed TheRussia on the time,

We don’t make the payloads. Are we going to advertise and promote any of those weapon programs? Most likely not. That’s a troublesome one to reply. As a result of we’re promoting to the army, we don’t know what they do with them. We’re not going to dictate to our authorities prospects how they use the robots.

We do draw the road on the place they’re bought. We solely promote to U.S. and allied governments. We don’t even promote our robots to enterprise prospects in adversarial markets. We get a number of inquiries about our robots in Russia and China. We don’t ship there, even for our enterprise prospects.

Final month Boston Dynamics joined numerous observe robotics companies in an open letter condemning the follow of weaponizing robotics. The letter notes, partially,

We consider that including weapons to robots which are remotely or autonomously operated, broadly accessible to the general public, and able to navigating to beforehand inaccessible areas the place folks dwell and work, raises new dangers of hurt and severe moral points. Weaponized functions of those newly-capable robots may also hurt public belief within the expertise in ways in which harm the large advantages they’ll deliver to society.

Boston Dynamics is in search of unspecified damages in its go well with.