IP Rights Showdown: Jawbone v. Fitbit

Jawbone and Fitbit has been battling for sales of their respective fitness trackers since 2011 when the original UP and the Fitbit Ultra both went on sale. The showdown has heated up between the two major companies with respect to IP rights. Beginning in May of this year, Jawbone filed a lawsuit in California state court accusing Fitbit of poaching employees and stealing trade secrets in order to “decimate” Jawbone. Jawbone alleged that Fitbit contacted thirty percent of its workforce in early 2015 and hired at least five former employees. Jawbone contends that each of these former employees took USB drives with them that held trade secrets. Jawbone has also targeted Fitbit with two patent infringement suits that contend that Fitbit’s Zip, One, Flex, Charge, Charge HR, and Surge products have infringed one or more of its patents that the company obtained when it acquired BodyMedia Inc., in 2013.

In the patent infringement cases, Fitbit claimed that some of Jawbone’s patents were invalid under the United States Supreme Court’s Alice Standard. The standard holds that a patent directed toward an abstract idea is invalid unless it includes “significantly more” than the idea itself. Jawbone countered that argument by arguing that Fitbit was applying too broad of a reading of the Alice Standard; two of the patents in question address specific problems with self-reporting health tracking, and the third addresses a technological problem specific to wearable sensor devices. According to Jawbone, the patented subject matter enables users to monitor and manage physical activity, consumption, and other health indicators in a specific, novel manner that cannot be accomplished by the human mind alone.

Fitbit has not backed down from this supercharged battle, Fitbit has recently filed suit in Delaware accusing Jawbone of infringing its wearable fitness tracker patents. The patents involved related to the wireless device pairing in its UP Move, UP24, UP2, UP3, and UP4 activity tracking products.

Currently the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is leading an investigation into whether Fitbit has been importing infringing activity-tracking devices as well as the complaint filed against Fitbit alleging patent infringement and theft of trade secrets. If the ITC finds in Jawbone’s favor, it could ban the import of almost all of Fitbit’s wearable devices into the U.S. Who will win the showdown? As the claims keep pouring in only time will tell.

By: Brittany Swaner, Symposium Editor

Photo credit: Rain Rabbit via photopin.com cc

Sources Used: http://www.law360.com/articles/718851/jawbone-says-fitbit-bid-to-nix-patents-should-wait-for-itc?article_related_content=1

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