Nike and Lululemon have reached an agreement to terminate a four-year patent dispute concerning Lululemon’s Mirror home workout technology, with the companies jointly filing a motion to dismiss the federal lawsuit with prejudice, preventing Nike from bringing the same claims again.
The filing did not disclose whether the companies had reached a financial settlement or any other agreement resolving the dispute. At the time of the reported dismissal, Nike had declined to provide comment, while Lululemon had not offered additional information.
Background of the Patent Dispute
In January 2022, Nike initiated the lawsuit against Lululemon Athletica, Lululemon USA, and Curiouser Products, the entity behind Mirror, alleging that the Mirror Home Gym infringed upon six patents related to fitness technology, including systems for setting exercise targets, tracking performance, and facilitating user competition.
Lululemon countered the allegations, and the case, Nike Inc. v. Lululemon Athletica Inc. et al., was assigned case number 1:22-cv-00082.
Lululemon’s acquisition of Mirror in 2020 for approximately $453 million had incorporated an interactive home fitness platform offering live and on-demand workout classes into its portfolio.
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Proceedings in the Mirror case were suspended in 2023 as Lululemon challenged the validity of Nike’s patents before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The board ultimately determined that relevant claims in five of the six asserted patents were unpatentable.
Nike appealed certain decisions, but encountered further setbacks at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Federal Circuit upheld the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s ruling that challenged claims of Nike’s U.S. Patent No. 8,620,413 were unpatentable, specifically those covering exercise and performance-monitoring technology that utilized exertion levels and heart-rate information.
Previous Litigation and Representation
The dismissal also follows the end of a separate Nike patent case against Lululemon involving athletic footwear. Initially, a jury had awarded Nike $355,450 for patent infringement, but U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian subsequently overturned this decision, deeming the patent claims invalid due to obviousness.
The Mirror litigation involved prominent intellectual property law firms, with Michael Harris of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer representing Nike, and Kyle Mooney of Morrison & Foester representing Lululemon.
