Peloton Sues Rivals Over Alleged Patent Infringement Related To On-demand Classes

Peloton has filed fresh lawsuits against two of its rivals, iFit and Echelon. From a report: It alleges that the companies are violating up to four patents it holds related to on-demand classes, one of which it only obtained last week, as Bloomberg Law notes. Peloton is seeking a court order to block sales of the devices until the patents expire, in addition to compensation. In both suits, Peloton accuses competitors of attempting to "free ride" off its technology. The iFit complaint concerns NordicTrack, ProForm and FreeMotion products that use the company's leaderboard and/or its ActivePulse or SmartAdjust features. "Prior to the actions giving rise to this suit, iFit Functionality never delivered live classes -- i.e., classes taught by instructors and streamed to users' devices in substantially real time -- or offered its members the ability to participate in competitive classes via a leaderboard. Instead, iFit Functionality only allowed subscribers to follow along with pre-recorded exercise classes on their machines, without any sort of community engagement," Peloton wrote in the filing. It accuses iFit of "profiting immensely from this infringement." In October, iFit paused its plan to go public due to adverse market conditions.

prior art or plain obvious idea

[echo123]

The defendants should not have much difficulty getting this lawsuit thrown out. Surely they can find either some form of prior art or simply just prove the idea of 'racing' is kind of obvious. Don't leader boards exist in Forza car racing simulations? What about Zwift or even Strava which are related technologies and also extremely popular, more so than Peloton?

Re:prior art or plain obvious idea

[CaptainLugnuts]

You mean like this? https://nintendo.fandom.com/wi... [fandom.com]

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[echo123]

"It was designed to provide player to player exercise", ...yeah, something exactly like that. How would that be any different than Peloton's 'leaderboard' patent claim?

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[chas.williams]

The novelness of Peloton is questionable. it's a competitive, scored, activity "with a computer." That's the only difference between riding on your Peloton and riding in any other community bicycle race.

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[Ed Tice]

A leaderboard is standard-issue in studio cycling and has been that way for decades. The auto-adjust feature may or may not be novel enough for a patent but it's at least something new.

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[teg]

A leaderboard is standard-issue in studio cycling and has been that way for decades. The auto-adjust feature may or may not be novel enough for a patent but it's at least something new.

The auto-adjust feature is obvious. I suggested it myself on their Facebook group after owning a device (treadmill) for a month or so. Granted, my suggestion is better, but the overall feature is obvious.

Background: For a typical iFit workout on a treadmill, there is a trainer running in a video. The incline/decline of the workout adjust to match the terrain, and the speed of the belt mimics the trainer (although adjusted a bit downwards) - e.g. intervals, endurance runs etc. For many years, the trainers ha

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[Ed Tice]

Again I don't own Peloton but I've used many elliptical trainers in the gym that let you select a heart-rate profile and the device will adjust to ensure that you are at various heart rates at various points throughout the exercise. Those have existed for decades as well. I'm not saying that Peloton doesn't have new and novel things just that whatever is new will have a fairly narrow scope because there is so much prior art.

Blacklist

[Anonymous Coward]

Great - now I know I'll never buy a Peloton.

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[jenningsthecat]

Great - now I know I'll never buy a Peloton.

You mean the fact that their treadmills injure [youtube.com] and kill [youtube.com] children wouldn't have put you off?

not any one-click shopping

[Petr Blazek]

a quick look shows that the patent is not blatantly obvious...
Let's get some popcorn, this is not your average patent troll bullying, this is real sh*t.

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[saywhat99]

I tried to read the patent but I'll admit that's a tough read so I gave up. But I did get a kind of overall picture that makes this more complicated than just a simple leaderboard. For example, the patent specifically focuses on sensor data collection during live sessions and then playback of this saved data during on-demand sessions to emulate a live class despite it being on-demand. Basically it seemed to focus on making on-demand classes feel like live classes. Or at least that's how I interpreted it.

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[phantomfive]

I tried to read the patent but I'll admit that's a tough read so I gave up.

The trick is to skim directly to the "claims" section and only read the independent claims. That is the part that defines the patent.

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[phantomfive]

Here's the patent [justia.com]. Which claim is non-obvious? Recording data collected by sensors and comparing that with other sensors?

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[Petr Blazek]

Yes, it's basically recording and comparing data, but in a very specific way that's pretty smart.
I've never heard about a system that would enable a bunch of people to exercise at home and watch how their avatars are faring in a peloton.
Sure, there might be some prior art, I haven't performed any research.
But obvious it is not.

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[Ed Tice]

Wii Fit

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[Petr Blazek]

Please provide me with a link to a source describing the most advanced features of this system. Seriously, I'm curious. Thanks.
(I can't find any mention about Wii Fit being used in an online group exercise, with all the users having real-time information about how others are doing.)

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[Ed Tice]

https://boardgamestips.com/pop... [boardgamestips.com] With WiiFit, it's not online group exercise because there is no instructor. Instead you play the game. In cycling studios, there is a leaderboard (just like Peloton) and an instructor. The recording and sharing of data was pioneered by Strava in 2009 (but it wasn't realtime) and Peloton was founded in 2012. The only thing that is novel about Peloton (that I learned from this article) is that when you "replay" a class, they "replay" the other participants data to make t

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[Petr Blazek]

Thanks.
From what I've learned from the patent,
it enables riding with a bunch of others and seeing whether you are keeping pace or trailing behind. Among the "others" may be an instructor, but not necessarily.

If it's new, it's game-changing. Maybe it's not new - I'm not an expert in cycling so I don't know...

As for the Wii Fit, IMO, you don't get this level of connection within the group.

   

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[Ed Tice]

Right. I had commented on other aspects of group cycling in different parts of this conversation. You can find my posts. Wii Fit has the concept of avatars which other group cycle systems don't have. But it's standard-issue to collect watts/distance/other metrics when bicycling (stationary our outdoors) and to compare them on leaderboards. (Although you don't really need a leaderboard if riding on a real bike with a group because you can see other people). I've also seen similar things in museums wher

Stupid patents of obvious ideas

[bradley13]

Create a patent office whose funding depends on approving patents. What could go wrong?

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[youngone]

What could go wrong?

Nothing went wrong. The system is working as intended, and if Peloton have more money they'll win.

Who runs this thing ?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Just this week they also banned people from putting #LetsGoBrandon in their profiles.

I don't think these people would be fun to hang out with. Maybe they need less exercise.

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[RightSaidFred99]

Well, to be fair that's probably more because they didn't want to be associated with painfully cringey boomer me-me's, and less out of any kind of political ideology.

For real, I feel strong secondhand embarrassment for the poor dorks who find the LGB thing hilarious.

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[snowshovelboy]

As a Kanye voter, I find both pro-LGB and anti-LGB stories/messages hilarious in a three stooges kind of way.

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[quantaman]

Just this week they also banned people from putting #LetsGoBrandon in their profiles.

I don't think these people would be fun to hang out with. Maybe they need less exercise.

Do they ban other politically charged profanity (even the tongue-in-cheek variety) and deliberately offensive speech?

There's a difference between political censorship and simply trying to make an inoffensive environment.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Just this week they also banned people from putting #LetsGoBrandon in their profiles.

If y'all can't act like adults you shouldn't be treated like one.

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[Ed Tice]

Well Biden counties represented 75% of the economy. And, more importantly, Peloton customers are probably skew very heavily Democrat. And everybody knows that. So the only reason to put Lets Go Brandon in your peloton handle would be because you want to be a political provocateur which isn't appropriate in a group fitness setting.

Patent Office

[SJ]

Change the funding model of the Patent Office. It's very simple.

If the Patent is rejected, the PO gets to keep the entire fee.
If the Patent is approved, the PO has give back 75%.

All of a sudden it's much more difficult to get a Patent approved.

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[Petr Blazek]

got your point,
true, financial incentives rule the world.
An example from my field: any codes of conduct for lobbyists are meaningless as long as success fees are in place.

But your suggestion would just distort the Patent Office's decision-making the other way - it's not what you want.

What's desperately needed is really strong oversight.
But as for funding, it should be needs-based.