A four-year legal battle between pizza chain, Domino’s and GPS technology company, Precision Tracking has effectively come to an end, following the announcement of a confidential settlement.
Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Limited on Wednesday issued a brief statement that indicated the pizza franchise giant had settled its dispute with Precision Tracking, a company that provides custom GPS tracking, fleet management and Internet of Things (IoT) products.
“Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Limited (DPE) is pleased to advise that it has settled its dispute with Precision Tracking Pty Ltd in relation to DPE’s GPS Driver Tracker technology,” Domino’s company secretary, Craig Ryan said in the statement.
The legal dispute had been on-going since 2014, when Domino’s ended the working relationship it had with Precision, which had been brought in to build technology for Domino’s customers to monitor the status of their delivery.
Following that, Domino’s went on to develop its own tracking platform in partnership with Navman Wireless, however Precision claimed the two had reverse engineered its original technology.
Legal action was then commenced by Domino’s in April 2016, with the brand alleging wrongful threats of patent infringement and misleading and deceptive conduct against Precision Tracking and its directors.
Precision then counter-sued for patent infringement, breach of confidential information and copyright infringement.
The confidential settlement announcement puts an end to legal proceedings, with Domino’s now free to continue using its current technology, under terms agreed to by Precision Tracking.
“The specific details of the agreement remain confidential with the exception of the following comments; all proceedings in opposition to any of our patents will cease, Domino’s and Navman Wireless are entitled to operate the GPS driver tracker and Precision Tracking and Delivery Command are entitled to utilise their patents and technology with third parties as they see fit,” said Precision Tracking director and R&D manager, Vladimir Lasky in a statement.
“We have retained our intellectual property and will continue doing what we do best – creating innovative and world first technology for cafes and restaurants under the Delivery Command brand.”
Lasky said Precision was satisfied with the result of the legal action and would now be turning its attention toward future endeavours.
“The resolution of this dispute is on mutually satisfactory terms and is the culmination of 4 years of very hard work. We now look forward to focusing on engineering and the creation of innovative solutions and technology that give our clients the edge,” Lasky said.
Despite the long-running legal battle, Ryan remains confident the pizza chain would expereince no adverse effect as a result.
“Under the settlement, DPE is entitled to continue using its GPS Driver Tracker technology and both DPE and Precision Tracking have agreed to discontinue against each other their respective claims,” Ryan said.
“DPE is satisfied with the commercial terms of the settlement which are confidential. The settlement will not have a material impact on DPE’s FY19 forecast earnings.”
Author: Nick Hall
This story originally appeared on sister-site Inside Franchise Business.
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