Lululemon vs Peloton: will this sportswear spiel work out?
The global gym wear industry has been experiencing gains recently, projected to reach a whopping $394.21 billion in 2023. It’s easy to see why, in an era where super-toned influencers dominate our Instagram feeds, activewear becomes the go-to attire for lifting and lounging. In the race to the top of the industry, there’s been some high-stakes legal activity between two of the biggest names —Lululemon, a Canadian company known for its lines of yoga attire, and Peloton, iconic for its innovative workout bikes. In short, Lululemon believes that Peloton is infringing on the gym wear giant’s intellectual property.
To understand this saga, it’s important to go back to the very beginning of the relationship between the two companies. In 2016, Peloton started doing business with Lululemon. Their deal was that Peloton would buy Lululemon clothes in bulk, then send them to a printer to add their logos to the garments. This wasn’t the first time that Peloton had done collaborations with clothing brands —in the past, they’ve worked with Adidas, Nike and Fila. Peloton described this process as “burdensome and time-intensive”, perhaps giving us a window into what prompted the decision to create a line of clothing independent from another brand.
On 11 November 2021, Lululemon sent a cease and desist letter to Peloton, where they said that they would sue unless Peloton stopped selling products that Lululemon claimed infringed on Lululemon design patents. The letter also claims that a pair of leggings violates Lululemon’s “trade dress”. Trade dress refers to the characteristics in a product’s design that tell us who that product was manufactured by. In the fashion sphere, common examples include Louboutin’s red soles and Doc Marten’s iconic yellow stitching. In this case, Lululemon argues that Peloton’s One Luxe Tight is too similar to the Align legging’s trade dress, but in order for this claim to be valid, Lululemon would have to show that a consumer could be confused by the two products. There was a deadline of 19 November for the cease and desist to be acted upon by Peloton, but the court extended the deadline for Peloton to respond. On 24 November, however, Peloton sued Lululemon in New York. Why? Two reasons: they first claimed that there was no infringement of patents and that the patent claims are invalid. They also claimed that the two brand’s logos and branding were so iconic of each other that a customer wouldn’t get confused between the two. Finally, Lululemon sued for copyright infringement in New York on the 29th. They also complained that the deadline extension for the response to the cease and desist letter was used by Peloton to prepare their lawsuit.
Take a look at the garments that Lululemon claims have been infringed on, and you’d be forgiven for assuming that they’re generic pieces of gym wear. Patents are not something companies let go of lightly, so at any whiff of infringement, it’s off to the court they go. Lululemon has also accused Calvin Klein and Under Armour of mimicking their garments. Part of the reason why patents are so often infringed is that “there’s no intellectual property watchdog”, according to Ashlee Froese, a fashion and branding lawyer. This case is also a sign to others in the industry that previously amicable relationships can quickly turn sour when intellectual property is on the line.
Both sides of this dispute have had their fair share of legal disagreements with other players in the industry. Nike filed a lawsuit against Lululemon for patent infringement, for making and selling Mirror Home Gyms. This workout technology allegedly infringes upon six patents. Peloton has also been seeking to protect patents, with claims filed against competitors in the on-demand fitness class world. Finally, and perhaps most infamously, Peloton was faced with a class-action lawsuit in April of last year when it was revealed by the company that their treadmill, the Tread+, had been involved in cases of injury involving children, one such incident resulting in the death of a child.
In an earlier case over music licensing, Peloton was described as a “textbook willful infringer”, a particularly interesting statement in the light of the Lululemon lawsuit. What can we glean from all of these cases? To reiterate (for it is the crux of the issue), the fitness industry is highly competitive and highly visible on social media. It’s fueled by innovation and science, making patents a popular choice. There’s also much to be said about our personal connections with fitness —how we look is very personal to us, so we are always reaching out to new and innovative ways that’ll be the ticket to a toned physique perfect for flexing on social media. Fitness companies know this, too, and will stop at nothing to make sure that anything that belongs to them will stay that way.
While we’ll have to wait and see what the outcome of the dispute is, this case shows the voracity with which firms will defend their patents. It’s also a reminder of how much intellectual property law flows beneath our consciousness every day —we can forget how often these kinds of cases happen. It’s certainly clear that patents do some heavy lifting in the fitness industry.
