Ouster, Inc. (NYSE:OUST) (“Ouster” or the “Company”), a leading provider of high-performance lidar sensors, issued the following statement today relating to the Company’s complaint filed with the U.S International Trade Commission (“ITC”) and the investigation into the unfair trade practices of Hesai Group (NASDAQ:HSAI) and related entities (ITC Investigation):
The presiding Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) recommended, following a motion by Hesai, that the investigation be terminated to allow arbitrators time to decide whether Ouster is required to arbitrate based on a prior Settlement Agreement between Velodyne and Hesai entered in 2020, before Ouster and Velodyne merged in February 2023. The initial determination is not a decision on the merits of Ouster’s ongoing patent infringement case against Hesai.
The motion is the latest attempt by Hesai to avoid a ruling regarding whether its imported lidar products infringe Ouster’s intellectual property rights and part of a larger pattern of delay, including invoking the Chinese Data Security Law during discovery.
Ouster invented digital lidar technology following an engineering breakthrough and holds one of the largest patent families in the lidar industry. Ouster’s complaint sets forth how, after the market shifted toward Ouster’s digital lidar, Hesai stole Ouster’s revolutionary patented technologies and incorporated them into Hesai’s competing products.
Ouster previously filed a patent infringement action in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. That case is stayed pending the ITC investigation. Should the ITC investigation be terminated, the mandatory stay in the District Court of Delaware will be lifted and the patent infringement case will commence.
Ouster welcomes that the investigation will now be reviewed by the ITC Commissioners. The company will continue to vigorously enforce its patents and seeks to bar all infringing products from the United States.
