Strava Just Dropped Its Lawsuit Against Garmin.
Strava has voluntarily dropped its (frankly, baffling) lawsuit against fellow fitness giant Garmin. Strava’s statement today is incredibly brief—just one line—and Garmin hasn’t responded or filed any statements since the lawsuit began 21 days ago. The original lawsuit demanded that Garmin cease selling all of its fitness watches and cycling computers, alleging patent infringement on two key features—segments and heatmaps—and also claimed that Garmin violated a ten-year collaboration agreement between the two companies.
Here’s the thing: Garmin almost never loses patent battles . And today’s news continues that trend. Given that Garmin is a key partner for Strava, what’s left between the two companies?
What was Strava’s lawsuit all about?
According to Matt Salazar, Strava’s chief product officer , the lawsuit targeted Garmin’s plan to shut down its API unless Strava placed the Garmin logo on virtually every element of its platform. In practice, this appeared to be Strava’s attempt to attack two key patent claims.
The first patent concerns heatmaps and popularity routing, filed in December 2014 and issued in 2016. These patents describe a technology for creating maps showing users’ training locations based on aggregated GPS data from multiple users. The first claim is fairly straightforward, but before delving into it, it’s important to know that the second patent focuses on another key feature: segments. This patent, filed in March 2011 and issued in August 2015, describes the concept of user-defined route segments where athletes can compete for the best time using GPS data.
To be clear, the lawsuit was filed immediately after recent disagreements between the companies. In 2024, Strava implemented controversial API changes that broke many third-party fitness apps. Around the same time, Garmin began requiring API partners to attribute data obtained from Garmin Connect—though Strava reportedly resisted this policy.
Furthermore, in May 2025, Garmin launched the Trails+ feature as part of its paid Garmin Connect+ subscription, which Strava may view as an infringement on its subscription-based revenue model. According to DC Rainmaker’s sources, Strava formally notified Garmin of the patent issues in late June 2025, and again in July.
Why was the trial so short?
As a quick aside, it’s worth noting that Strava and Garmin’s relationship has spanned over a decade. As DC Rainmaker, a prominent fitness tech blogger, explains , Garmin introduced its own segments feature back in June 2014, and in July 2015, it partnered with Strava to implement “Strava Live Segments” on Garmin devices under a Master Partnership Agreement. Strava now claims that Garmin has violated this agreement by continuing to develop and implement its own Garmin-branded segments alongside Strava’s features. Notably, this alleged infringement has been ongoing for nearly 10 years.
It’s been an uphill battle for Strava from the start. Perhaps the biggest blow to Strava has been the timing issue, particularly regarding heatmaps. According to research by DC Rainmaker, Garmin actually implemented heatmaps in Garmin Connect in early 2013—more than a year and a half before Strava filed its patent in December 2014. Many other platforms, including third-party developers using Strava’s API data, also developed heatmap functionality during this period.
“The fact that they were granted a patent for this demonstrates how convoluted the software patent system has been over the years,” notes D.K. Rainmaker . Garmin’s lawyers could easily have argued that this patent should never have been granted in the first place, similar to how Wahoo sued Zwift and quickly dropped the case after a judge questioned the validity of their patents.
There are plenty of rumors circulating today about what exactly happened behind the scenes. We see that Strava grossly miscalculated the size of the Garmin shutdown; Strava’s legal arguments were flimsy, to say the least, and, in targeting Garmin, the company decided to go with its single largest and closest partner—one with an impressive track record. This was a huge risk and, most likely, completely unworth it.
What will happen now?
Over the past two weeks, we’ve already seen Garmin announce new integrations with Komoot (a Strava competitor). Time will tell whether Strava has simply ruined its most important relationship, and what the consequences for users might be.
For now, users of both platforms can continue to use their devices and sync data as usual. However, the lawsuit highlights growing tensions in the fitness technology ecosystem, as companies increasingly compete not only for users but also for control of all the data and features athletes rely on.