NordicTrack accuses Peloton of copying its creations
The company behind home fitness brand NordicTrack has claimed that rival Peloton infringed its patents through the sale of Peloton’s new Bike+ product and continued a “pattern of infringement”.
Icon Health & Fitness, in a suit filed Thursday, October 15 at the US District Court for the District of Delaware, alleged that Peloton had wasted no time in taking advantage of the “unprecedented demand” created by the COVID-19 pandemic and “simply copied technology developed by others”.
“Peloton’s playbook is straightforward: copy and misappropriate the innovations, inventions, and creations of others, take the credit, and then attempt to bury its wrongdoing in litigation. This is not the first action Icon has had to bring, or that others have brought, to police Peloton’s misappropriation of IP,” claimed the suit.
Peloton’s Bike+ exercise bike allegedly includes two new innovations that were developed by Icon: the ‘Auto-follow’ feature that remotely controls the resistance of the bike and a swiveling screen to improve off-bike exercises.
According to the suit, Peloton’s Auto-follow feature is covered by Icon’s patent, US number 7,166,062. Icon also has a patent pending on a swivel screen.
Icon has also accused Peloton of infringing US patent number 10,293,211, which provides for an exercise apparatus with “seamless integration of aerobic and anaerobic exercise with a ‘free weight cradle incorporated into a treadmill, an elliptical trainer, a stepper machine, a stationary bicycle, a rowing machine’”.
“As the fitness industry’s leading innovator, Icon is unfortunately accustomed to having companies copy its technology. Some companies, like Peloton, have built (at least in part) entire businesses on the back of Icon’s patented technology,” added the suit.
Icon has asked the court to find that its two patents have been infringed and to issue an injunction against Peloton, alongside triple damages.
Steven Feldman of Hueston Hennigan, Peloton’s outside litigation counsel, said that the filing is “nothing more than a continuation of the litigation that Peloton filed against Icon earlier this year, and is a retaliatory filing intended to deflect attention away from Icon’s blatant infringement of Peloton's leaderboard technology and other deceptive practices”.
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