ITC Judge Says Fitbit Didn’t Steal Jawbone’s Trade Secrets

According to a ruling on Tuesday by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), Fitbit didn’t steal any of Jawbone’s trade secrets.

The case all began when Jawbone accused Fitbit of poaching their employees and using their knowledge of Jawbone’s trade secrets. Jawbone also claimed that Fitbit violated several of its patents.

Jawbone’s hope was that the ITC would ban Fitbit from importing its products to the U.S. from its overseas manufacturing partners. Both companies make devices overseas and import them into the U.S.

The ruling by the ITC Judge means that Fitbit will still be able to import their product into the U.S. and sell them. The ITC ruling from U.S. judge Dee Lord reads:

“No party has been shown to have misappropriated any trade secret.”

A Jawbone representative says that the company intends to ask for a review of the ITC ruling. The ITC decision was something Jawbone had hoped would be in its favour. In a statement, Jawbone’s CEO Hosain Rahman said that he felt confident that the ITC would ban Fitbit from importing products. If this were to happen, Jawbone will have an automatic advantage the overall wearable devices market, since the U.S. is one of the largest markets.

Both Jawbone and Fitbit make popular fitness tracking devices, but while Fitbit has continued to produce new activity trackers, Jawbone has not released a new fitness-related product since 2015.

[via Reuters]