It was 2011, and just a few years into the smartphone wars, Apple sued Samsung for allegedly infringing its design patents. While this was not the first major patent battle in tech, the case is remarkable for one particular design patent owned by Apple: a rectangular cuboid with rounded corners.

Essentially, Apple claimed that Samsung violated its patents by producing a smartphone in the shape that everyone is now familiar with. It seemed almost hilarious at the time that Apple could patent something as essential as the rectangle.

Seven years and countless court hours later, Apple and Samsung settled this dispute. But patent disputes seem to come up every time there’s a new mobile device category enjoying an inflection point.

Take the case of Bengaluru-based healthtech startup Ultrahuman and its widely publicised battle with Oura over patents related to smart rings.

Founded in 2019, just as that Apple-Samsung battle was winding down, Ultrahuman rapidly scaled itself into a global brand on the back of smart rings, health sensors, and a vision of quantifying human wellbeing and physiology.

The company rapidly gained market share in the US, soon after launching its products, but not everyone was happy. In particular, Finnish-American electronics company Oura claimed Ultrahuman had violated its design patents for smart rings.

In fact, Oura won a preliminary ruling in the US International Trade Commission (ITC) case against Ultrahuman. While the decision is not final, the presiding ITC judge found that Ultrahuman’s Ring Air violated several of Oura’s design and utility patents.

The ruling also noted that Ultrahuman presented questionable evidence about its manufacturing capacity in the US. If the company is unable to get the ITC to reverse its preliminary determination, Ultrahuman would be banned from importing its smart ring into the US market.

Being the company’s largest market, the US is a key battleground between Ultrahuman and Oura. Even as giants such as Samsung have ventured into the smart ring category, the Ultrahuman-Oura case might determine the fate of one of the most promising healthtech companies to emerge out of India.

Where does this leave Ultrahuman and what recourse does the company have to solve this stalemate? Will the startup go back to the design table or does it have enough substance to defend its position against Oura? Let’s take a look.

The Early Ultrahuman Days

Ultrahuman was founded by former Zomato execs Mohit Kumar and Vatsal Singhal, who were inspired by sensors used by athletes to monitor various stats and improve performance.

The duo believed that such sensors, if utilised well, could revamp the workout paradigms for ordinary individuals and empower them with the data that athletes leverage.

The company’s first product was a subscription-based fitness app offering workouts, meditation, sleep aid, and sound therapy. Ultrahuman teamed up with top athletes, coaches, and musicians to create high-quality content that catered to these use cases, besides leveraging smartphone sensors.

Ultrahuman’s early days were all about using content to guide wellness, building a loyal community. The startup built a community called ‘The Cyber Army’, where users participated in discussions about health, nutrition, and product feedback.

Starting in 2022, Ultrahuman began making moves into dedicated fitness hardware. In April that year, the company acquired LazyCo, a startup that made smart rings, including one called Aina.

And in just........

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