The popular fitness app Strava has filed a lawsuit against device maker Garmin. The legal complaint accuses Garmin of stealing patented technology.
The lawsuit focuses on two specific features that are central to many athletes’ routines. Strava claims Garmin infringed on its patents for “Segments,” which are timed portions of a route, and “Heatmaps,” which show the popularity of trails and roads based on user data. Strava is also alleging that Garmin broke a Master Cooperation Agreement by creating its own heat map feature.
The legal action is asking a court to issue a permanent order that would stop Garmin from selling any products that include these features. If granted, this would affect a large portion of Garmin’s business, including many of its GPS watches and its Garmin Connect online tracking platform.
This lawsuit has caught the industry off guard. Strava and Garmin are two giants in the fitness technology world and have been partners for roughly ten (10) years. Their platforms are deeply integrated, allowing users to easily sync data between Garmin devices and the Strava app.
The situation became even stranger when Strava’s Chief Product Officer, Matt Salazar, explained the company’s reasoning on Reddit. According to his post, the lawsuit was triggered by new Garmin rules for its API partners. These rules would require the Garmin logo to be displayed on every single activity post, graph, image, and sharing card.
Salazar framed the lawsuit as an effort to protect user data, but the explanation came across to many as a complaint about Garmin promoting its own brand on the data its devices help collect.
Via: The Verge