Strava has filed a lawsuit against Garmin over Segments and heatmaps, demanding that Garmin stops selling many of its devices. The lawsuit was filed on 30 September in the US District Court for the District of Colorado.
Details of the Lawsuit
Strava claims Garmin is infringing patents related to its features. The Segment patent was filed in 2011 and granted in 2015. This patent covers GPS segments with time-based performance comparisons. Garmin introduced its Segments feature in 2014 on the Edge 1000 bike computer and expanded it to other devices that year.
Garmin had previously collaborated with Strava to implement Strava Live Segments on its devices. Under a Master Cooperation Agreement (MCA), Garmin agreed not to display both Garmin and Strava Segments simultaneously. Strava alleges that Garmin exceeded the MCA’s scope by studying Strava’s implementation to create a competing system.
The second aspect of the lawsuit concerns heatmap functionality. Strava cites two patents filed in 2014 and 2016, which cover generating maps based on user activity data. However, Garmin had heatmap functionality as early as 2013. This raises questions about the validity of Strava’s patents.
Strava asserts that it has suffered damages due to these infringements, including lost revenue and harm to goodwill. In June and July, Strava provided Garmin with written notice of the alleged infringements after disagreements arose between the companies.
Strava’s Requests
Strava’s lawsuit requests a permanent injunction to prevent Garmin from selling devices that include Segments or heatmap functionality. This would impact most of Garmin’s smartwatches and Edge bike computers. Strava has stated that it does not intend to disrupt Garmin users’ ability to sync data with its platform.
