These startups both released groundbreaking induction stoves. Now they’re embroiled in a lawsuit

Impulse, a sleek induction stove that began shipping to customers last year, advertises itself as “unlike any other induction stove ever made.” But that product is now at the center of a legal fight. Copper, another company making next-generation induction stoves, sued Impulse on Friday in federal court in Delaware for patent infringement. At the center of the dispute is a shared design choice: Both companies build stoves with batteries tucked inside, a feature that boosts performance, eases installation in homes without electrical upgrades, and doubles as energy storage to ease strain on the electric grid. It’s a novel idea, and one that Copper patented first. In a copy of the lawsuit obtained by Fast Company, Copper claims its founders began developing the technology as early as 2019. (The work spun out of R&D lab Otherlab, which received a U.S. Department of Energy grant in 2020 to push the idea further.) The company formally launched in 2022 and secured its first patent that Ma