Adidas has reached a confidential settlement with Baltimore, Maryland-based Under Armour and one of its fitness apps, MapMyFitness, in a patent infringement lawsuit, according to Forbes.
The claims against Under Armor have been dismissed and Adidas agreed to grant Under Armour as well as MapMyFitness a license to use its patents for an undisclosed price.
Adidas sued Under Armour, in February 2014, in the US District Court in Delaware over the alleged infringement of 10 digital health-related patents. Adidas' lawsuit also included fitness tracking app maker MapMyFitness, which was acquired by Under Armour in November 2013 for $150 million.
Adidas patents cited in the lawsuit included ones for: a location-aware fitness training device that supports real-time interactive communication and automated route generation, systems and methods for presenting characteristics associated with a physical activity route, methods and computer program products for providing information about a user during a physical activity, and a mobile device that receives information from a server about a user's movement.
Adidas included MapMyFitness in the lawsuit because the company offers methods for detecting, evaluating, or analyzing movement of a body or determining performance information in its apps.
In 2014, MobiHealthNews speculated that the lawsuit was likely meant to protect Adidas' miCoach training system, which includes an activity tracker and a display watch that tracks heart rate and other biometric data. But since then, Adidas has added even more health tech to its portfolio. In August 2015, the company acquired Austrian fitness app and device company Runtastic for $240 million.
Since the lawsuit was first filed in 2014, Under Armour has also upped its digital health game. In February 2015, Under Armour acquired MyFitnessPal and Endomondo. A year later, Under Armour acquihired Gritness, which had developed an app to help people find and join local workouts.
Earlier this month, there was a development with another digital health patent infringement lawsuit: An administrative law judge at the International Trade Commission ruled that the two Jawbone patents Fitbit was accused of infringing upon were ineligible and invalid.
