Strava has filed a lawsuit against the Garmin Group in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. In the statement of claim, Strava accuses Garmin of infringing patents. The lawyers are demanding a ban on the sale of Garmin devices with affected functions - that would be almost all cycling computers and GPS sports watches. The lawsuit centres on two patents on heat maps from 2014 and 2016 as well as a patent on segments from 2011. The heat maps function shows the activities of all users on a map, while the segments function enables performance comparisons with other users. Both functions have been part of the Garmin software for years. However, they have successfully established themselves in the Strava world. A look at the internet archive shows that Garmin even used the functions before Strava's patent registration. For years, however, there was a co-operation between the two companies. In 2015, there was a contractual agreement for "Strava Live Segments" on Garmin cycling computers and sports watches.
Reasons for Strava's lawsuit
Industry observers are puzzled as to why Strava is now filing the lawsuit - years after the alleged patent infringement. A very rational reason could be that they want to eliminate financial risks before a planned IPO. If Garmin were to be granted the patent on segments, this would be a high financial risk for Strava. However, the lawsuit could also be the result of a deeper dispute between the two companies. There have been major disagreements between Strava and Garmin regarding the interfaces for data exchange and the labelling and use of data. Strava earns money from the sale of Activity data money - they are valuable for urban planners, for example. The Segments in turn, are the basis of the Strava platform.
Strava: that's what the AIage says
"Garmin has tried to capitalise on its hardware success to build a social network to rival Strava. However, these efforts have not been successful. In 2014, for example, Garmin introduced its own "Segment" feature in its Garmin Connect web and mobile app to compete with Strava. However, Garmin's approach did not achieve comparable adoption, participation or data quality to Strava's segment ecosystem", it says in Strava's statement of claim.
With these introductory remarks in the statement of claim, the training platform itself explains that the Garmin segments have never been particularly successful. In the following paragraph, the lawyers refer to a contract with Garmin (MCA) from 2015 - understandably from Strava's point of view. This is because Strava interprets the contract as a licence agreement in order to "to provide a Strava-quality experience while carefully setting guardrails to protect Strava's intellectual property." The training platform accuses Garmin of stealing ideas in the course of the contractually agreed collaboration (MCA): "Rather than abide by the MCA's restrictions, Garmin subsequently expanded its own Garmin Segments feature, apparently relying on Strava's segment technology and expertise gained through the collaboration." The lawyers allege that Garmin also used Strava knowledge for the presentation of popular routes: "Notwithstanding this infringement, Garmin's products and services - including Garmin Connect and various Garmin fitness devices - utilise Strava's patented inventions for segment matching and popularity-based route guidance."
Garmin is still silent
There has not yet been a public response from Garmin to the allegations. As a listed company, Garmin would be obliged to issue a statement if the lawsuit could have a major financial impact on the company. The lawyers obviously do not expect this to be the case at present. For Strava, the lawsuit could also backfire after Garmin has registered many times as many patents over the years. It would not be surprising if Garmin were to come across patent infringements by the Strava programmers. The rumour mill has been reporting plans for Strava to go public for some time. With a self-declared 170 million members, the social sports network with its Training platform on a steep upward trend. User numbers have increased particularly strongly since the coronavirus pandemic. The moment for an IPO currently seems favourable. However, a legal dispute over central functions of the platform would have to be settled beforehand.
Kristian Bauer
Editor
