Strava Sues Garmin

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Hard to say what the motivation is, but patent lawsuits are used in all kinds of ways. Not uncommon for a smaller company to launch lawsuits against a big industry player (Garmin being a $6B+ sized company) with the hope that they cut a check to make it go away. In a previous job, my company was the market leader and a constant target of competitors claiming patent infringement. One of our competitors probably made more $ from being a patent troll than they did from selling competitive products. It used to drive me crazy (because it hit our bottom line), but the corporate lawyers would just pay them to make them go away (until the next lawsuit). The lawsuits usually had no basis, but the patents are often written so broadly that it still takes a bunch of resources to fight the claims (particularly when it comes to technology patents that a normal person can’t understand).