Weight Watchers takes on UK couple over app
Weight Watchers, which sells various products to help with weight loss, has sued a British couple for trademark and patent infringement over their weight loss help app.
The case was filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, May 11.
The complaint relates to the ‘Ultimate Food Value Diary’ app, created by Chris and Nella Founds from Cambridge, UK. It provides a food tracker, database, calculator and scanner for a one-off fee.
Weight Watchers claims this infringed its ‘points’ patent, US patent number 6,040,531, which gives users a personal points budget made up of a daily target and weekly allowance of ‘points’ values according to various food criteria.
The company also owns a variety of other patents relating to its ‘points’ system and other weight loss regimes, along with various ‘Weight Watchers’ trademarks.
“The infringing product is designed to mimic Weight Watchers’ system without requiring users to join, by allowing its users to track and calculate Weight Watchers points values assigned to food items and daily activities for purposes of weight loss and management,” said the claim.
The claim added that the Founds were subscribing customers of Weight Watchers and, “as such, had access to all of Weight Watchers’ digital tools, and knew that the products and Weight Watchers’ points system were patented and proprietary to Weight Watchers”.
The app has over 50,000 downloads on Android, and claims to have over 350,000 “happy customers”.
Weight Watchers is requesting a jury trial, monetary damages, triple damages, costs, and attorneys’ fees.
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