It’s each startup’s nightmare — being taken to court docket by a a lot wealthier, a lot bigger entity.
However that’s the place Muzmatch, a UK relationship app for Muslims based in 2014, has spent the final two days. The startup is being sued within the Excessive Court docket in London for a trademark infringement by Match.com — the American relationship titan behind Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid — who’re arguing that the startup copied the model and look of Match and its related apps.
The 2-day listening to noticed scrutiny of firm emails, press interviews, inner reviews and earlier variations of the Muzmatch web site.
The listening to additionally noticed two Match.com executives give proof alongside Muzmatch’s founder, Shahzad Younas.
Younas spent a complete of three hours on the stand, answering questions on Muzmatch’s viewers, Muslim relationship tradition, in addition to the app’s branding origins and its options.
He appeared assured and on a number of events informed the plaintiff’s barrister that he disagreed together with his presentation of occasions.
“I simply don’t agree with you on that, I’m sorry,” Younas concluded after one backwards and forwards.
The listening to
Match.com’s central argument is that Muzmatch makes use of “match” in its search engine marketing and meta tags to spice up site visitors, piggybacking off the group title.
However Younas argued that references to “match” in his firm’s title referred completely to “match-making” reasonably than the rival group title, which he says was broadly often called Match.com reasonably than merely “Match”.
He additionally recalled being a 26-year-old banker when he based the corporate, realising that mainstream relationship companies didn’t cater to halal guidelines on courting. He argued that Match.com wouldn’t have been an appropriate house for many of Muzmatch’s customers, and due to this fact isn’t engaging competitors.
The defence additionally targeted on unpicking the declare that buyers might be confused between the 2 manufacturers.
Muzmatch’s barrister flagged that Match.com had shared simply three emails exhibiting potential client confusion out of hundreds of thousands of customer support enquiries. She additionally argued that there was no hint of any confused pundits on social media.
The court docket additionally heard that Match.com had tried to purchase the UK Muslim relationship app 4 instances earlier than 2019 — all of which had been declined.
Choose Nicholas Caddick may take a number of months to deliberate on his resolution.
Younas wrote on Twitter final week that the court docket battle was successfully a lose-lose. Even when Muzmatch wins, it should have spent £1m on authorized charges, which aren’t reimbursed in mental property instances. If it loses, it’ll be pressured to vary its title and pay materials damages.
The corporate confirmed to Sifted that it was paying for its authorized charges out of its £5.8m Sequence A elevate, which noticed Y Combinator and Luxor Capital be part of as buyers.
“It’s demoralising,” Younas informed Enterprise Insider final week. “Litigation is pricey, and it’s actually painful to need to divert and put aside treasured startup funds and vitality away out of your product to legal professionals to struggle these issues.”
David vs Goliath
Muzmatch is without doubt one of the few profitable UK relationship tales so far.
It now counts 5m members and 150,000 have discovered their marriage match on the location.
The relationship area just isn’t a straightforward one to crack, as Hinge founder Justin McLeod defined to Sifted final 12 months. Hinge finally was pressured to promote to Match.com, McLeod defined, after getting the chilly shoulder from buyers.
Muzmatch can be one of many few UK startups to tackle an enormous company in court docket.
The corporate had beforehand prevented going to court docket after getting served papers final March by Match.com’s subsidiary in Texas. Muzmatch settled earlier than it reached court docket, eradicating the contested swipe perform from its app and with out admitting legal responsibility.
Isabel Woodford is Sifted’s senior reporter. She tweets from @i_woodford and coauthors our fintech e-newsletter. Join right here
