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Bloomberg
Lululemon Athletica Inc sued Peloton Interactive Inc for patent infringement five days after the fitness bike company filed a preemptive suit against the clothing maker, as a dispute over a busted co-branding deal heats up in the booming home fitness space.
Peloton “imitated several of Lululemon’s innovative designs and sold knockoffs of Lululemon’s products, claiming them as its own,†the Vancouver, British Columbia, athleticwear company said in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in California.
Peloton pursued the deal with Lululemon in 2016 to benefit from the cachet of its products and designs, the Canadian company said in the suit.
The clothing maker “supplied Peloton with some of Lululemon’s most innovative and popular athletic apparel†and let the New York firm add its own trademarks and resell the co-branded apparel through its retail outlets, according to the complaint.
Then, earlier this year, Peloton asked to end the co-branding pact, and Lululemon stopped supplying it with merchandise, it said in the suit. Peloton soon announced it was starting its own line of apparel but “did not spend the time, effort, and expense to create an original product line,†Lululemon claims.
Peloton said in an email that it doesn’t comment on active litigation. The legal crossfire comes as the home fitness industry is thriving.
Lululemon, once solely a yogawear company, has branched out into other business lines, including at-home fitness when it acquired startup Mirror for $500 million last year. Peloton entered apparel in September with its own line of private label clothes.