American online dating company Match Group filed a lawsuit on March 16th against Bumble for patent infringement.
Match Group owns several online dating sites and apps, such as Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid and more. The lawsuit is against Bumble for infringing on two of its patents that are related to Tinder. Specifically, the swipe-to-connect feature and the graphical user interface of the app.
Also included in the suit is that two of Bumble’s early executives worked at Tinder, with the document alleging that they stole confidential information and used it to help build Bumble.
Bumble creator Whitney Wolfe Herd is a co-founder of Tinder, but she left after being accused by other founders of committing sexual discrimination in a lawsuit that was eventually settled out of court, with Herd walking away with $1 million (USD).
Bumble functions similarly to Tinder, except that women need to start the conversation. It has established itself as a serious player in the online dating space with over 22 million users and a growing revenue model. This is why Match Group made an offer of $450 million USD to buy the app in the summer of 2017, but Bumble refused.
Source: Recode, TechCrunch
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