How do you win a patent dispute? This was the question that the Munich tech startup eGym in recent years. In an interview with startUPdate, the magazine of BayStartUP, the founders report on their experiences.
In January 2016, the Munich Higher Regional Court (OLG) dismissed a competitor's lawsuit against the Munich-based high-tech fitness company in its entirety, also in the second instance. In the first case, the Munich I Regional Court had already denied all of the competitor's claims related to the alleged patent infringement by eGym in June 2013.
eGym is the market-leading provider of state-of-the-art concepts for organizing training areas in fitness studios. The Munich-based high-tech company delivers the complete infrastructure for digital value creation: "intelligent," fully electronic strength training equipment and CRM software for a networked training area.
The startup was founded by BayStartUP supported with financing and now has over 200 employees. With the help of renowned patent attorneys and a supporter from the Technical University of Munich, the company was able to emerge victorious from the patent dispute.
Looking back, what was particularly important for you to emerge victorious?
First of all: We started out as innovation drivers in the fitness industry. We want to make things better or completely new for our customers. Copying is completely out of the question for us. Therefore, we were always firmly convinced that we would ultimately prevail in this case.
The subject matter of this dispute is initially extremely complex and difficult for outsiders—and that includes the court—to grasp. It involved subtleties of physics, electrical engineering, and engine technology, including complex details that require considerable explanation.
Meticulous work – the be-all and end-all in patent disputes
Meticulous work on every single process step was therefore essential. Because once you've explored the topic for yourself, you must come to the conclusion—this was our firm conviction from the beginning—that we haven't infringed any patents. Our job was to illustrate this reasoning and make it understandable.
To what extent did the process, which lasted several years, influence your overall business strategy? And your day-to-day operations?
It was unpleasant that our competitor, who filed the lawsuit, repeatedly used the pending proceedings to unsettle customers during sales discussions and try to win them over. We even obtained an injunction against this behavior, but our competitor violated it and had to pay a hefty fine during the proceedings.
During this time, we continued our course unaffected. As I said, we had the best possible team on our side for our defense.
There is no protection against lawsuits
What advice do you generally give startups to best protect themselves against such attacks?
There is no protection against lawsuits. However, you should take a close look at patents from similar disciplines as early as possible and check your own product against them. Of course, we had thoroughly examined this beforehand and determined that we were not infringing any patents.
We also learned from this mammoth process that while patents are intended to protect innovators, the enormous length of the process and the associated costs actually tend to protect large companies. However, with hard work and belief in yourself and your product over three and a half years, you can overcome this hurdle.
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