Velodyne Lidar Inc., the world’s leading lidar developer, has recently filed a Patent Infringement lawsuit against two Chinese rivals, Hesai, and Suteng (also widely known as RoboSense). By filing the complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Velodyne has claimed that the two companies have posed a threat to its business by copying its lidar technology. Velodyne further asserted that both Hesai and RoboSense have been merchandising and selling products by infringing various aspects of “High Definition Lidar System” having the US Patent No. 7969558, which was awarded to Velodyne’s founder and CEO, David Hall, in the year 2011.
Velodyne accused RoboSense by stating that the company was well aware of Velodyne’s patented technology before incorporating the same into its products. Moreover, foreign counterparts and specification of Velodyne’s patent were also cited in the foreign Patent Applications filed by RoboSense and Hesai.
Keeping all these things in mind, Velodyne has now asked the ITC to investigate both Hesai and RoboSense for unlawfully selling and importing the lidar sensors infringing its patented lidar technology. Furthermore, Velodyne has also requested the court to issue cease and desist orders along with permanent limited exclusion orders to these companies and stop them from manufacturing and selling such products.
In a statement, David Hall said that Velodyne is an invention-based company and shall continue to protect its Intellectual Property (IP) vigorously for investing in and innovating new technology. On the other hand, RoboSense stated that as Velodyne has only targeted a few items sold in the US, the lawsuit won’t have any impact on its sales plan at a global level and it shall continue to research and develop the new core technology.
As part of Velodyne Acoustics, David Hall, in 2005, had invented real-time surround view lidar systems. Besides, Velodyne is widely known for selling lidar sensors for robotics applications. Quite recently, the company also introduced the Velodyne Lidar Puck 32 MR facilitating low-speed autonomy and including drones and mobile robots as well.