Strava Sues Garmin Over Patent Infringement

Strava sues Garmin over alleged infringement of two key patented features.

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(Photo Josh Ross/Velo)

Strava has filed a lawsuit against Garmin with the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. As first reported by DC Rainmaker, the complaint alleges patent infringement covering two key patents in the Strava portfolio going back a decade.

The two brands have existed in largely complementary roles for years, with Garmin devices recording data that users can then analyze using Strava. So why then has Strava brought this suit?

Heatmaps

The first patent at issue is actually a pair of nearly identical patents. Both patent 9297651 and patent 9778053, granted in December 2014 and February 2016 respectively, carry the title of “Generating user preference activity maps” with the second being a “continuation of co-pending U.S. patent application” for the first. Both of these patents describe the functionality of the Strava heatmap, where Strava users can see where other users ride most frequently.

As stated in the patent, what sets this functionality apart from other previous data gathering methods is that it leverages GPS devices carried by athletes rather than “for example, governmental transportation departments commonly place sensors on select roads and/or deploy people to different areas to manually count the number of passerby cyclists.”

This heat map functionality, of course, relies on portable GPS units being widely available, and one of the largest manufacturers of GPS units is Garmin.

Despite these patents, Strava is not the only brand with heatmap functionality. You can find heatmaps that highlight the frequency of routes athletes take from Suunto (used by Hammerhead), RideWithGPS, and Trailforks [editor’s note: Trailforks is owned by Velo‘s parent company, Outside] among others. One of those others is Garmin and, although both Garmin and Strava have existed peacefully with this shared functionality for over a decade now, that appears set to change with this lawsuit.

Segments

The other patent at issue is perhaps even more core to the functionality of Strava. Patent 9116922 covers “defining and matching segments” and “includes receiving a user defined segment via a user interface input; and determining a matching effort.” In other words: segment leaderboards as well as the basic concept of segments.

This patent was granted in 2011 and, again, relies heavily on data recorded by GPS hardware, of which Garmin is a major contributor. Like the first patents, it is also a feature found on a variety of competitors’ platforms beyond Garmin. Garmin’s segments feature is also about a decade old at this point, but is now only drawing a lawsuit from Strava.

Where things stand now

Right now, it’s very early in the process. The complaint was filed Tuesday, September 30, 2025 by Denver based lawyer Joel Sayres on behalf of Strava.

That filing states that:

Monetary relief alone is inadequate. Garmin’s continued infringement of the ’922 Patent causes irreparable harm to Strava, including loss of network effects, erosion of platform differentiation and goodwill, and brand loyalty that cannot be fully measured or compensated in money. There is a causal nexus between the accused segment-identification, matching, and ranking and consumer demand for Garmin’s devices and services. Strava is therefore entitled to a permanent injunction prohibiting Garmin from making, using, offering to sell, selling, or importing the accused implementations (and any colorable variations) of the patented technology, and Strava has no adequate remedy at law; the balance of hardships and the public interest favor injunctive relief.

We have reached out to both Strava and Garmin for comment. At the time of publication Strava has not responded and Garmin said that the brand “won’t be commenting on pending litigation.”

A proposed schedule is the next step forward in the legal process. A hearing on that is set for December 4.