Garmin, headquartered in Olathe, KS, is facing separate lawsuits from fitness app Strava and Finnish smartwatch company Suunto over patent infringement.
Strava filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, alleging that Garmin violated the terms of a 2015 agreement by infringing on Strava patents for segments, or route sections where athletes can compare performance times, and heatmaps that show popular areas for activity.
To that, Strava is seeking a permanent injunction to prohibit Garmin from selling or offering any products that provide segments or heat mapping features, arguing that “monetary relief alone is inadequate.” Those demands target Garmin’s Connect fitness tracking platform and the majority of Garmin’s devices, including Edge bike computers, as well as Forerunner, Fenix and Epix watches.
The lawsuit comes as Garmin and Strava have worked closely together for a decade, including collaborating on a Master Cooperation Agreement in 2015 to integrate Strava Live Segments on Garmin devices.
Section 55 of Strava’s lawsuit states: “Garmin expanded well beyond that agreement’s scope. Garmin built, branded, and widely deployed Garmin‑branded segments outside the Strava‑built experience and to non‑Strava users; enabled segment competition and leaderboards across Garmin Connect (web and mobile) and on devices; and surfaced segment results independent of the Exhibit A constraints.”
Strava’s chief product officer, Matt Salazar, in a Reddit post, said the primary reason behind Strava’s litigation was a set of “new developer guidelines for all of its API partners.” Salazar wrote that the dispute arose from Garmin’s new API guidelines announced in July that require “the Garmin logo to be present on every single activity post, screen, graph, image, sharing card, etc.”
“We have until November 1st to comply, and, if not, Garmin has threatened to cut off access to their API, stopping all Garmin activities from being uploaded to Strava,” Salazar said.
The suit comes as Garmin, this past March, launched Connect+, a premium subscription version of its free Garmin Connect fitness and health tracking software.
Suunto’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas, accuses Garmin of infringing on five patents related to measuring a user’s respiratory rate, antenna design, watch casing, and tracking golf shots. The complaint alleges that many Garmin smartwatches incorporate the patented technologies without permission, including the Marq, Fenix, Epix, Instinct, Venu, and Forerunner models.
Suunto is seeking damages and potentially a permanent injunction to block the sales of Garmin devices that utilize these features.
Garmin said it does not respond to pending lawsuits.
Image courtesy Garmin
