Strava has abandoned its legal action against Garmin, just three weeks after it was made public.
As reported by DC Rainmaker on Wednesday, the American fitness tracking company has dropped the lawsuit relating to patent infringement against the American fitness tech giant.
A filing reads: "Plaintiff Strava, Inc., by and through its undersigned counsel, voluntarily dismisses the above-captioned action, without prejudice." It appears that it never made it to any kind of court, with the resolution happening in private.
The legal action was over two patents, one around segments, and the other around heatmaps, but Strava then said that the issue is developer guidelines for its API partners. New Garmin rules, according to Strava, mean that all activities recorded on Garmin should be shared with the Garmin logo.
It appeared that Strava was effectively demanding that Garmin ceases selling all devices that contribute to heatmaps and use the segments on Garmin Connect, which is pretty much all of Garmin’s fitness watches and most of its bike computers.
However, that threat has now ceased. Last week, Strava told Garmin users of their platform that they should not be concerned over connectivity stopping. Considering Strava has dropped its lawsuit, you could read this as a victory for Garmin.
Strava had also told its developers that Garmin attribution will be required when the data originates from a Garmin device, to comply with new Garmin guidelines from 1 November. This seemed to suggest that Strava was agreeing to Garmin's new application programming interface (API) rules.
Previously, Strava's chief product officer Matt Salazar wrote on Reddit that his company were taking action because "we could not justify to our users complying with the new guidelines".
It is difficult to see what Strava could have won from the lawsuit, with relations between the two – which rely on each other a lot for interconnectivity – now strained. Garmin tech, whether smartwatches or bike computers, provide a lot of the data for Strava; the latter needs the former, much of the time.
Also last week, Strava confirmed reports that it is seeking to go public and be listed on the stock exchange. In an interview with the Financial Times, the company's CEO Michael Martin said the American fitness tracking app company had an "intention to go public at some point".
