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Revenge: iRobot Selling Former Foe's Machine

By Noah Shachtman Last year, iRobot accused one of its former engineers, Jameel Ahed, of stealing its trade secrets to build his "Negotiator" machine. Today, the company turned the tables, announcing it will start selling Ahed's robot as its own. Ahed and his Negotiator generated enormous interest in the military robotics community, as a low-cost alternative to iRobot's PackBot. Last summer, the two 'bots went head-to-mechanical-head to compete for the Pentagon's biggest robotics contract to date. And, for a time, Ahed secured the $285 million deal to supply the Army with up to 3,000 bomb-handling machines. But the contract was stripped from Ahed, after iRobot sued him for intellectual property theft. Ahed did his best to look guilty -- dumping evidence in the garbage, and blatantly BS'ing on the stand. The Army was forced to overturn its decision. And iRobot not only won the so-called "xBot" contract; in its settlement with Ahed, the firm won the rights to the Negotiator, too.

Full post as published by The Trade Secrets Vault on August 06, 2008 (boomark / email).