Peloton Interactive Inc [‘Peloton’] a leading company making immersive and challenging workouts in people's lives accessible, affordable, and efficient, was created in 2012. After bringing talent from technology, hardware and production together, they have since created numerous equipment, classes and communities in the fitness space. In 2020 Peloton released their Bike+, which is a 4-foot by 2-foot indoor exercise bike that allows users to view the muscles worked out during class, offer real-time metrics and go hands free to have their resistance adjusted and re-calibrated.
World Champ Tech LLC [‘WCT’] was also created in 2012 by professional cyclist James Mattis and professional cyclist and Olympic windsurfer Ted Huag and is a California-based fitness technology company. In 2014, WCT created an iPhone app titled Bike+, which offered users the ability to “detect, record, store, analyse and share data from their indoor and outdoor cycling sessions”.
In 2021, WCT filed a lawsuit against Peloton in California for trademark infringement and unfair competition, requesting they stop infringing its trademark “Bike+”. Following on from the claims, both companies filed for summary judgment, of which was concluded this week. The judge granted summary judgment in Peloton’s favour after outlining that “there was no likelihood of confusion” between the two trademarked products.
Both parties had provided expert evidence indicating their respective customers’ confusions between the similar trademarks, however the judge stated that no submitted evidence provided proof of such confusion in real life, “given that parties’ products have coexisted in the marketplace since September 2020”.
During the summary judgment, employees involved in the creation of Peloton’s Bike+ claimed to be unaware of WCT’s Bike+’s trademark. However, it came to light that Peloton’s in-house legal team had notified outside counsel after identifying a potential conflict with WCT’s matching trademark, of whom advised that no conflict would arise.
When discussing the reasoning behind Peloton’s name choice, the defendant outlined the ‘+’ addition suggested a line extension featuring improved characteristics and referenced previous brands who have used the same function such as Disney with ‘Disney+’ and Apple with ‘Apple TV+’.
When giving their decision, the judge provided 8 key factors that were analysed, and which of the parties the factors were weighted towards. These are outlined below:
· Strength of the marks: Defendant
· Relatedness of the goods: Plaintiff
· Similarity of the marks: Plaintiff
· Evidence of actual confusion: Defendant
· Marketing channels: strongly Defendant
· Degree of consumer care: Defendant
· Intent to deceive: neutral or very slightly Plaintiff
· Likelihood of expansion: neutral or very slightly Plaintiff
The judgment also outlined how the plaintiff’s claim was weakened as there had been similarly named apps in the Apple app store at the time WCT originally filed for their Bike+ trademark.
WCT’s app update had very few sales in 2021, with little to no marketing efforts made. This, as well as the defendant-weighted factors above, led the court to rule in Peloton’s favour, ending the ruling with “In sum, under these circumstances, confusion is possible but not probable”.
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