When Protecting Your Patent Goes Wrong – Strava v. Garmin.

By: Theresa Small

Most endurance athletes have heard of the titan of the GPS tracking industry – Garmin. Garmin was founded in 1989 by two electrical engineers and since then they have risen to not only global prominence but dominance.[1] Their watches range anywhere from a few hundred (the average being around four hundred) to two thousand dollars.[2] A good GPS watch is an endurance athletes best friend, from tracking heart rate, to sleep, workouts, calories burned, stress on the body. Garmin even recommends workouts for you based on the data it has collected.[3]

Strava on the other hand, while a household name in the endurance industry, is more of a social media site designed to track your workouts, share them, and connect you with other athletes in the area.[4] Strava is novel bit of technology, with the yearly subscription costing eighty dollars.[5] However, it is not as expensive or as essential as an athlete’s GPS watch.[6] The fact that Strava, while interesting and fun, is not as essential and integrated into every aspect of an athlete’s life like their watch is, their major pitfall occurred when they attempted to protect their intellectual property.

Over the years Strava has patented several technologies. Most notably they have a patent on their segment technology, use-preference activity maps, and popularity-based rating.[7] Garmin has been trying to break into the social industry for years with little to no avail; ultimately leading to a close working relationship between the two including culminating in their Master Cooperation Agreement (“MCA”) which allowed Garmin a narrow use of these features, specifically the segment feature.[8] While Garmin was allowed narrow usage of these features Strava alleged in September 2025 that Garmin overreached their allowed usage and was in violation of the MCA.[9]

While Garmin may have infringed on Strava’s patents and may have violated the MCA, the court never got the chance to rule on the matter as the case was voluntarily dismissed by Strava after twenty-one days.[10] The voluntary dismissal is very telling in this case. Strava had a claim and they took the time, effort, and risk to file a lawsuit against one of their biggest partners. Despite this, after twenty-one days, the suit was voluntarily dismissed with no filings from Garmin.[11]

In the field of technology and innovation, protecting your intellectual property means protecting your investments. So why didn’t Strava press forward and protect their investments? The main reason may be that Strava realized that in an all-out fight with the titan that is Garmin, they would lose. An eighty-dollar subscription to an app that shares your activities and has some cool features is not the same as a several hundred-dollar watch that tracks your fitness and helps you know if you are on track with your goals. More than that, during their little legal spat with Strava, Garmin made a power move – they further integrated with one of Strava’s biggest competitors – Komoot.[12]

In the end, despite Strava having valid patents and having every right to protect their intellectual property they chose not to. Because protecting their intellectual property against Garmin might mean losing their biggest and most important partner, losing customers to a competitor like Komoot, or, even in the worst-case scenario, going under. So, while protecting investment and innovation is important, what is the point of protecting an investment if the platform takes a hit it may never recover from?

 

Link to image: https://unsplash.com/photos/a-watch-on-a-wrist-CgntmxCnXY4

[1] About Garmin, Garmin, https://www.garmin.com.sg/company/about/ (last visited Nov. 9, 2025).

[2] Running Smartwatches, Garmin, https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/sports-fitness/running-smartwatches/ (last visited Nov. 9, 2025).

[3] Using the Daily Suggested Workout Feature on a Garmin Watch, Garmin, https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=oYknGZ910l1pfBNzkDHX6A (last visited Nov. 9, 2025).

[4] Jason Fuller, Mary Louise Kelly, & Christopher Intagliata, Running app Strava accuses watch-maker Garmin of patent infringement, NPR (Oct. 16, 2025, 3:52 PM), https://www.npr.org/2025/10/16/nx-s1-5570851/running-app-strava-accuses-watch-maker-garmin-of-patent-infringement.

[5] STRAVA Subscription, Strava, https://www.strava.com/subscribe (last visited Jan. 22, 2026).

[6] Id.

[7]  Compl., Strava Inc. v. Garmin Ltd., 1:25-cv-03074-DDD-CYC, at 2 (D. Colo. Sept. 30, 2025).

[8] Id. at 3.

[9] Id.

[10] Ray Maker, Strava Voluntarily Drops Lawsuit Against Garmin, DC Rainmaker (Oct. 22, 2025) https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/10/strava-drops-voluntarily-lawsuit-against.html.

[11] Id.

[12] Komoot and Garmin make navigation even easier for cyclists, Komoot (Oct. 13, 2025),  https://newsroom.komoot.com/255196-komoot-and-garmin-make-navigation-even-easier-for-cyclists/.