Strava has voluntarily dropped its (frankly baffling) lawsuit against fellow fitness giant Garmin. Strava's filing today is incredibly brief—just a single line, with no filings or responses from Garmin since the case began 21 days ago. The original lawsuit demanded that Garmin cease selling all of its fitness watches and cycling computers, claiming patent infringement on two core features—segments and heatmaps—and alleges that Garmin violated a decade-old cooperation agreement between the two companies.
Here's the thing: Garmin almost never loses patent battles. And today's news continues that trend. Considering that Garmin is Strava’s most important partner, where does leave the two companies now?
What was Strava's lawsuit even about?
According to Strava's Chief Product Officer Matt Salazar, the lawsuit was meant to take action against Garmin's plan to cut off API access unless Strava plasters the Garmin logo across virtually every part of its platform. What that looked like practically was Strava targeting two main patent claims.
The first involves heatmaps and popularity routing, covered by patents filed in December 2014 and issued in 2016. These patents describe technology for generating maps that show where users work out based on aggregated GPS data from multiple users. This first claim is pretty clear-cut, but before diving into that, know that the second patent focuses on a different signature feature: segments. This patent, filed in March 2011 and granted in August 2015, covers the concept of user-defined route segments where athletes can compete for best times using GPS data.
For more context, the timing of this suit comes on the heels of recent friction between the companies. In 2024, Strava implemented controversial API changes that disrupted many third-party fitness apps. Around the same time, Garmin began requiring API partners to provide attribution for data sourced from Garmin Connect—a policy Strava reportedly resisted.
Additionally, Garmin launched its Trails+ feature in May 2025 as part of a paid Garmin Connect+ subscription, which Strava may view as encroachment on its subscription-based revenue model. According to DC Rainmaker's sources, Strava formally notified Garmin of the patent concerns in late June 2025, with a follow-up in July.
Why was the lawsuit so short-lived?
Backing up a little, it's worth noting here that Strava and Garmin's relationship has been close for over a decade. As trusted fitness tech blogger DC Rainmaker explains, Garmin introduced its own segments feature back in June 2014, before partnering with Strava to implement "Strava Live Segments" on Garmin devices in July 2015 through a Master Cooperation Agreement. Strava now claims that Garmin expanded beyond the scope of that agreement by continuing to develop and deploy its own Garmin-branded segments alongside Strava's features. Notably, this alleged infringement has been ongoing for approximately 10 years.
This was an uphill battle for Strava from the jump. Perhaps most damaging to Strava's case was the timeline issue, particularly regarding heatmaps. According to DC Rainmaker's research, Garmin actually introduced heatmaps in Garmin Connect in early 2013—more than a year and a half before Strava filed its patent application in December 2014. Multiple other platforms, including third-party developers using Strava's own API data, had also created heatmap functionality during this period.
"The fact that they got a patent for it is a testament to how messy software patents have been over the years," DC Rainmaker observes. Garmin's lawyers could easily argue this patent shouldn't have been granted in the first place, similar to when Wahoo sued Zwift and quickly dropped the suit after a judge questioned the validity of their patents.
Today there's a good bit speculation about what exactly went down behind the scenes. What we can see is that Strava made a gross miscalculation about how much Garmin would fold; Strava's legal arguments were shaky at best, and in targeting Garmin, the company decided to target its single biggest and closest partner—one with a formidably victorious track record. It was high-risk, and most likely not at all worth it.
What happens now?
In the last two weeks, we’ve already seen Garmin announce new integrations with Komoot (a Strava competitor). Time will tell if Strava just botched its most important relationship, and what that could mean for users.
For now, users of both platforms can continue using their devices and syncing data as usual. But the lawsuit debacle highlights growing tensions in the fitness tech ecosystem, as companies increasingly compete not just for users, but control over all the data and features that athletes have come to rely on.
