Blast Motion Hits Diamond Kinetics With Lawsuit Over Infringement Claims
Sports wearable analysis company Blast Motion filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Diamond Kinetics, a baseball and softball motion swing app and platform, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Blast Motion, which is in the midst of another lawsuit against Zepp Labs from 2015, also joined to the new suit Canada-based PPG Technologies, which provides hardware and software solutions to its customers. On its website, Diamond Kinetics is listed as a customer.
The Blast Motion complaint claims that Diamond Kinetics and/or PPG Technologies infringes upon five of the company’s patents related to the “basic fundamentals of motion capture technology and things like automatic curation of video,” according to Blast Motion co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Fitzpatrick.
Said Fitzpatrick to SportTechie: “I’ve been in technology my entire career, and I understand how important intellectual property is to any company and technology…From the very beginning of forming Blast Motion, we have spent a lot of time, effort and money to protect our research and development. We intend to protect our investments going forward.
“It’s an attractive marketplace to be in, and it’s attractive for investors to invest. It’s imperative for these startups to do their due diligence and review the intellectual property that already exists and in the industry that they’re going to compete.”
A drawing from BLAST Motion’s patent filing
Diamond Kinetics co-founder and CEO CJ Handron did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Fitzpatrick said that nearly a year ago, Blast Motion legal counsel issued a notification to Diamond Kinetics regarding the infringing nature of its products and technologies but to no avail, ultimately leading to the lawsuit.
He added that the company is “very pleased” with where it’s currently at in the legal process with Zepp Labs, saying that it has now entered the expert testimony phase of the proceeding following its four patents being upheld at the Inter Partes Review stage. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, IPR is a trial proceeding that reviews the patentability of one or more claims.
The following are the United States Patent Numbers involved in the case against Diamond Kinetics and PPG: 8,905,855; 8,903,521; 9,401,178; 8,976,041; and 9,039,527.
It should be noted that two (‘521 and ‘527) of the five patents Blast Motion is alleging infringement against Diamond Kinetics and PPG Technologies have already have been upheld by the USPTO in the case against Zepp, according to Fitzpatrick.
As he explained, if the lawsuit against Zepp enters a jury trial this fall, there will be a few months of overlap between both cases.
Blast Motion presently has 48 total patents along with 32 patent applications. Its products include Blast Golf, Blast Baseball and Blast Softball, among others.
