Fuelled by the almost overnight transition to working from home triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the global home fitness equipment market was estimated to be worth $8.4 billion in 2020.

Towards the start of the pandemic, Lululemon—an American-Canadian athletic apparel company—acquired home fitness tech start-up Mirror for $500 million in July 2020. Eighteen months later, on January 5, 2022, Nike opened court proceedings at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York claiming Lululemon’s Home Mirror Gym infringed six of its patents.

Nike is seeking damages for which it contends is intentional unauthorised use of the patented inventions and an injunction from the court to prevent Lululemon from using the protected features.

Recent home fitness litigation

This is just the latest in a series of recent, high profile litigation cases involving big names in the home fitness market. In December 2021, Nike filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission in Washington accusing Adidas of copying its patented Flyknit trainer technology. Nike claimed it cost over $100 million and more than a decade of research and development to invent Flyknit, which debuted at the London 2012 Olympic Games.