Blast Motion and Zepp Labs announced Friday a resolution to a patent infringement lawsuit Blast Motion filed in March 2015, whereby the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California has issued an injunction against Zepp from selling or offering to sell its baseball and softball sensor products in the United States.
The court entered a judgment of infringement against Zepp’s baseball, softball, golf and tennis products in violation of parts of three Blast Motion patents; conversely, the court also entered a judgment of infringement against Blast Motion’s baseball, softball and golf products with respect to some claims within one of Zepp’s patents.
The stipulated judgment and settlement to the litigation also included a license agreement in which both companies would be able to continue selling their wares in the U.S. with the exception of Zepp’s baseball and softball sensors. The remaining terms were confidential.
“We are very pleased with the outcome of the settlement,” Blast Motion CEO Michael Fitzpatrick told SportTechie in a statement. “It’s not often that an injunction is granted for patent infringement. Blast Motion has been an early entrant and innovator in our markets. We recognized the importance of protecting our technology and have over 50 patents issued, and another 40 pending. Since 2010, we have invested a lot of time and money on innovations to build a great end-to-end solution for our customers. We welcome fair competition, but we’re committed to ensuring that our customers and investors can leverage all the benefits of the Blast Motion technology.”
Blast Motion also has patent infringement litigation pending against Diamond Kinetics. The injunction against the sale of Zepp baseball and softball sensors begins June 17. Those three companies have led the bat sensor market for the past few years, with only Garmin joining the fray as a recent entrant into the category.
Zepp Labs, whose press office did not return a request seeking additional comment, posted an addendum to its joint announcement with Blast Motion. Zepp called the settlement a “mutually agreed resolution” and stressed to its customers that it would continue to sell non-baseball and -softball sensors in the U.S.; that it would continue to support existing iOS and Android app users for all sports; and that it will continue to add baseball and softball features to its Apple Watch app, as well as for other wrist wearables.
