The owner of Universal Robots is suing a Chinese robot maker over patents
Teradyne filed against JAKA's German entity at the Unified Patent Court over three patents covering robot joints and a touchscreen interface.
Teradyne Robotics, which owns Universal Robots, has filed a patent infringement case against the German entity of the Chinese robot maker JAKA Robotics. The case was lodged on 24 August 2026 at the Copenhagen local division of the Unified Patent Court.
Both companies build collaborative robot arms, machines designed to work alongside people without a safety cage. Universal Robots is the best known name in that market; JAKA is the rising one on the Chinese side.
The three patents
The first concerns a programmable robot and its user interface: showing a three-dimensional view of the robot on a touchscreen and operating it from there.
The second and third cover the robot joint. One deals with a safety brake mechanism attached to the motor axle and the arrangement of the position sensor; the other with the construction of the joint and how joints connect to one another.
All three carry a March 2006 priority date and all three are assigned to Universal Robots.
What JAKA says
The company said that as of 2 September it had not received formal notification. It added that two separate freedom-to-operate analyses had found no likelihood of infringement involving Universal Robots patents.
Because 128 documents in the file are not yet public, it is not known whether Teradyne is seeking damages or an injunction.
The second case this year
This is Teradyne's second significant European action against a Chinese robot maker in 2026. In February it brought a copyright case against Elite Robots.
Chinese manufacturers hold a clear price advantage in collaborative arms. Patent litigation is becoming the European front of that competition.
Source: The Robot Report.
