‘I had to grab the bull by the horns,’ says Lucy Wojcik, Chief IP Counsel, on transforming Ocado’s IP team

UK-based Ocado Group licenses grocery technology, such as automated warehousing, e-commerce platform software, and operational data. It also owns a 50% share in the online grocery retail business Ocado.com.

The company’s IP team manages a portfolio of over 1,900 active granted patents, as well as 1,800 pending applications, across nearly 500 families. They are chiefly filed in one or a mix of the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia, China, Japan, and Korea – with some also filed in emerging jurisdictions such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Ocado is one of the very few overseas businesses that has now also enforced patents in Malaysia, which may be seen as a more “whacky” choice, Lucy Wojcik, who has served as the company’s Chief IP Counsel for over a decade, told ip fray during an interview at IP Dealmakers Europe last month (May 12, 2026 ip fray article).

But this sort of litigation is now seen as “business as usual” for Ocado, she said, following the company’s long-running global dispute against Norwegian rival AutoStore.  

During the interview, Ms. Wojcik also spoke to ip fray about how she grew her department from nothing in the past 12 years, the relationship she has cultivated with her General Counsel and the C-suite, and where she hopes to take the IP team next.