On Tuesday, August 23, a U.S. International Trade Commission judge ruled that Fitbit did not steal rival trade secrets of rival Jawbone.
Fitbit vs. Jawbone
The judge, Dee Lord, stated that in the case involving Fitbit vs. Jawbone no violation of the Tariff Act has been found. An eventual violation of the Tariff Act would give the commission the power of blocking those products that infringe U.S. intellectual property. However, in this case no party has been found to misappropriate any trade secret.
According to Fortune, before the ruling of the ITC, Jawbone had hopes that it would secure an import ban against wearable fitness tracking devices manufactured by rival Fitbit. In July 2015, Jawbone filed a complaint with the trade agency, poaching employees who took with them technical details, supply chains information, plans and other confidential data about its business and accusing Fitbit of infringing six patents.
Four patents were invalidated by the judge and other two were withdrawn before a May trial limited only to the trade secrets claims. In statement released on Tuesday, Fitbit Chief Executive Officer James Park declared that Jawbone's allegations were without merit. He also added that Jawbone tried to compensate for its own lack of market success by disrupting Fitbit's momentum.
According to Business Insider, both Fitbit and Jawbone make devices overseas and import them to the United States. Fitbit is the biggest maker of clippable and wrist-based fitness gadgets, with 5.7 million devices sold in the second quarter. According to research firm IDC, at the end of the first quarter of 2016 Fitbit has reached almost 25 percent global market share.
Jawbone is a producer of activity trackers under the UP brand but it is no longer among the top five wearables vendors since it has been losing market share. The company has had its share of troubles as the case dragged on. In January, it raised a new round of funding at about half its previous valuation, according to Recode.
