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17 September 2021PatentsAlex Baldwin

Peloton wins Texas patent suit against rival Mad Dogg

The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has dismissed spin bike maker Mad Dogg Athletics’ patent infringement suit against Peloton, ruling that the patents were abstract but still eligible.

Texas judge Rodney Gilstrap issued a final opinion and order on Wednesday 15 September dismissing all claims of the lawsuit without prejudice.

Gilstrap ruled that Mad Dogg did not argue that two of its patents covered more than the “abstract idea” of a display mounted to an exercise bike that would provide instructions, similar to an instructor-led class.

The two patents in dispute were US patent number 9,694,240 (‘240) and 10,137,328 (‘328).

Peloton moved to dismiss the case with prejudice because the asserted patents were ineligible. While the court granted Peloton’s motion to dismiss, it did so without prejudice and upheld the patents eligibility.

The Alice test

Gilstrap invoked Alice vs CLS Bank in his analysis of whether Mad Dogg’s patents were directed towards a patent-ineligible concept.

He noted that certain limitations in Mad Dogg’s patents were directed to ineligible concepts, particularly how the on-board computer in the ‘240 patent “stores”, “measures” and “displays” information.

The second step of the Alice test involves determining whether the elements of an invention are “well-understood, routine and conventional activities previously known” before a patent can be determined ineligible.

Here, Gilstrap agreed with Mad Dogg that Peloton did not present enough “well-pleaded facts” to warrant full dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6).

Peloton's IP battles

With Peloton rise to the top of the exerciser market in recent years—buoyed partly by the pandemic—has come a slew of IP litigation from several of its competitors.

Alongside its dispute with Mad Dogg, Peloton has been involved in IP litigation with Flywheel, Echelon and NordicTrack.

In February 2020, Peloton and Flywheel settled its case concerning the validity of some of Peloton’s patents involving “remote streaming” leaderboard technology after it had accused Flywheel of infringing them in 2018.

Its litigation with NordicTrack manufacturer Icon Health is ongoing, according to Barker Brettel.

Mad Dogg’s litigation

Madd Dogg first filed the suit against Peloton on December 14 2020, claiming that Peloton had built its multi-billion dollar business largely off Mad Dogg’s patented inventions.

It held that it was the progenitor of the indoor cycling market, having first launched its spinning bikes and programmes in the 1990s.

The California company asked the court to determine damages at trial and grant a temporary injunction against Peloton’s Bike+, which was released in September last year.

In February 2021, Peloton filed a petition to cancel Mad Dogg’s trademarks with the US Patent and Trademark Office, claiming that it was “abusively enforcing” the trademarks of “Spinning” and “Spin” across the indoor biking industry.

Peloton claims that Madd Dogg’s lawyers were ceaseless in their campaign to chase down infringers, and claimed that Mad Dogg’s co-founder John Baudhuin had bragged about spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars a year” on litigation.

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