Photo courtesy of The Verge.
Summary: The company that now owns Tinder is suing Bumble for copyright infringment.
The company that owns several high-profile dating apps is looking to buy Bumble, and their method of acquisition appears to be litigious.
According to Recode, Match Group, which owns sites such as Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, and PlentyOfFish, is looking to acquire Bumble, but the dating app refused their $450 million offer last year. In order to gain leverage, Match Group filed a lawsuit against Bumble, seeking to enforce a patent on code from Tinder.
Bumble is a dating app that allows users to swipe left and right as “nos” and “yeses” to potential dates. If a person matches “yes” with someone else, only the female is allowed to initiate contact.
The popular dating app was created by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014. The founder had also co-founded Tinder, which uses similar technology but does not have the female-first twist, but she left the company because she said she experienced sexual harassment.
Match Group acquired Tinder and its patents, and on Friday, they said that Bumble infringed on Tinder’s patents which include “Matching Process System and Method” and “Display Screen or Portion Thereof With a Graphical User Interface of a Mobile Device.” The first patent refers to the swiping left and right mechanism, and the second refers to the “ornamental aspect” of the user interface.
In Friday’s lawsuit, Match pointed out the similarities between Bumble and Tinder because of the swiping nature, and it said that Bumble had infringed on their patented code.
Match told Recode that the company had invested heavily in the developement of its products and that it was filing the lawsuit to enforce its property rights.
“Match Group has invested significant resources and creative expertise in the development of our industry-leading suite of products. We are committed to protecting the intellectual property and proprietary data that defines our business. Accordingly, we are prepared when necessary to enforce our patents and other intellectual property rights against any operator in the dating space who infringes upon those rights,” the company stated.
According to TechCrunch, this lawsuit could help leverage Match into a successful acquisition of Bumble. Basically, sell to Match, Bumble, and the lawsuit will go away.
Bumble currently has 22 million users and has an expected annual revenue of $100 million. It was founded by Wolfe Herd and Badoo founder Andrey Andreev, who has a 79% stake in the company.
According to CNBC, if Match acquired Bumble, they may also ask for Badoo and its other dating-related sites and apps.