Not a joke: Strava is suing Garmin and demanding it stop selling all devices

In today’s weirdest news, former corporate buddies Strava and Garmin are headed toward a court battle. Strava, the behemoth fitness social platform, is suing Garmin. Garmin, or course, makes the devices that many use to track their activities and upload them to Strava. Garmin also has a tracking platform of its own, Garmin Connect.

The impending court battle was first reported by DC Rainmaker, and it is weird. Beyond Strava going after a company that is, or was, arguably essential to its success, there are the demands. Strava is demanding that Garmin stop selling all devices. All bike computers. All fitness watches. All fitness tracking devices in general. Strava is also asking for specific features to be removed from Garmin Connect.

Even weirder? The complaints seem to be about features that Garmin developed a decade ago, or longer.

Wait, Strava vs. Garmin?

At issue are two features of Garmin Connect that Strava says infringes on its patents. One is heatmaps. The other is segments. Neither feature is new. Both parties developed these features over a decade ago. In the case of segments, not only are segments not new to Garmin Connect, they are not, and have never really been, popular. Especially when compared to Strava.

Segments are arguably the core of Strava’s success, and what set the platform apart from other tracking apps and services (like Nike+, MapMyRide and, yes, Garmin Connect). If you’re somehow on this site and unfamiliar, segments allow users to make timed sections, and compete to set the fastest time on a global leaderboard of any other athlete that has covered that section of road or trail. Both Strava and Garmin introduced segment features, as mentioned, over a decade ago.

The second feature at issue is heat maps. Both platforms have, and have had for years, a heat map feature that aggregates user and global data into a visual display. Strava is claiming Garmin’s heat maps violates several of Strava’s patents. Again, these features and related patents are over a decade old.

As a result, the suit claims, “Strava has suffered damages, including lost revenue and business opportunities, erosion of competitive differentiation and network effects, harm to goodwill, and unjust gains to Garmin.”

Again, DC Rainmaker has an incredibly detailed breakdown of what is happening, some thoughts on why it might be happening, why it is happening now, and why it might not be as weird as it sounds. Though it also might still be very weird.

There is a lot happening at Strava lately that departs from its past, though, so anything is possible. The brand is also looking into an initial I.P.O. offering, which adds its own twist to this convoluted legal tale.

Heatmaps hustle

Personally, I find it hilarious that Strava is suing Garmin over heat maps because that feature has repeatedly landed Strava in hot water for mismanagement of data or, in other cases, users not being careful enough about what data they let Strava share. There were the secret military bases it exposed, the fact that it was revealing far too much geographic data about users including their homes without being clear that that was happening, or accidentally revealing the location of world leaders.

All of that has prompted us to ask, on more than one occasion, should you make your Strava private? Not that we’d ever quit altogether. Well, Maybe.