Steadview Capital-Backed Ultrahuman Lands In Legal Soup Over Patent, Copyright Infringement

Bengaluru-based fitness and healthtech platform Ultrahuman has been sued by Finnish health wearable startup Oura for alleged patents and copyright infringements.

In a lawsuit filed in a district court in Texas in September this year, Oura alleged that Ultrahuman copied the former’s technology rather than innovating and developing its own products or features. 

“Ultrahuman’s efforts to copy Oura do not stop at infringement, but have extended to hiring former Oura employees, soliciting current Oura engineers, and potentially benefiting from some of its primary investors gaining access to Oura’s proprietary and confidential information before the launch of the Ultrahuman Ring,” the lawsuit alleged.

Founded in 2019 by Mohit Kumar and Vatsal Singhal, Ultrahuman develops various health tracking and monitoring devices, including fitness rings. In June this year, it launched a new version of its fitness wearable, the Ultrahuman Ring Air, for better sleep tracking, heart rate and body temperature monitoring, among other things.

Ultrahuman has also built a subscription-based fitness platform for better monitoring of the data the devices collect while also offering a range of workout content.

In August 2021, the startup raised $17.5 Mn in a Series B funding round from the likes of Steadview Capital, Alpha Wave Incubation, Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures, and Utsav Somani’s iSeed fund. 

Founded in 2013, Finland-based Oura is one of the major names in developing smart rings.

Oura said in its lawsuit that the Ultrahuman Ring was intended to be an imitation of the Oura Ring in appearance, structure, and functionalities, and the similarities are not a mere coincidence.

“While Ultrahuman presents as an innovative startup, upon information and belief, Ultrahuman is funded in part by a sovereign wealth fund, supported by an investor who gained access to confidential and proprietary information on the Oura Ring in or around December of 2021,” Oura has alleged.

The Finnish fitness startup also claimed that the selected material used for the Ultrahuman Ring is the same as the Oura Ring, which includes durable titanium with non-allergenic and non-metallic inner moulding. This gave the Ultrahuman Ring an identical look and feel to the Oura Ring. 

It is pertinent to note that in the app-based fitness segment, Ultrahuman also competes with Indian startups like Delhi NCR-based Zivov and Bengaluru-based HealthifyMe.