Appeals Panel Doubts Court Error Enough to Revive Peloton Suit

A Ninth Circuit panel acknowledged a lower court erred in analyzing a workout app-maker’s Bike+ trademark but questioned whether the lapse is enough to revive its lawsuit accusing Peloton Interactive Inc. of infringement.

A California district court bypassed analysis of the strength of World Champ Tech LLC’s mark after finding it was descriptive, even though there’s nothing in case law that says a court can do so, Judge Lucy H. Koh said Tuesday during oral argument before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

Even if World Champ wins on strength of the mark, however, “you lose on many other things” considered in the circuit’s eight-factor test for consumer confusion, known as Sleekcraft, Koh said.

World Champ’s counsel, Gregory Gilchrist of Verso Law Group LLP, argued a reversal on that factor combined with the lower court considering its evidence of consumer confusion would mean the four “important” factors weigh in his client’s favor: similarity of goods, similarity of the marks, strength of the mark, and actual confusion.

Peloton disputed the strength of the evidence of confusion.

“We’ve been conducting the ultimate experiment for the past four years of whether a customer could likely be confused, and we have the answer,” said Jeffrey Davidson of Covington & Burling LLP. “The answer is that no one is confused.”

World Champ sued Peloton in 2021, alleging the stationary bike maker’s “Peloton Bike+” line infringed its Bike+ trademark registered in 2015 to cover a metric-tracking cycling app. The company claimed reverse confusion, where an older mark is absorbed by that of a larger entity.

The US District Court for the Northern District of California granted Peloton summary judgment in 2024, calling the decision “a close call” but finding Peloton didn’t infringe World Champ’s Bike+ trademark largely because the mark is conceptually weak. World Champ appealed two months later, arguing the district court advanced an unprecedented rule that “a small trademark owner’s rights are too inconsequential to be infringed, or that likely confusion depends on the size of the party whose rights are knowingly overrun.”

Koh questioned whether World Champ’s proffered evidence of confusion, a consumer survey showing a net confusion score of 12%, was enough because the court is required to look for more evidence if a survey is as low as 10 to 20%.

“That’s absent here,” she said, pointing to a declaration submitted by a World Champ co-founder that stated its app was downloaded hundreds of times in 2021 and 2022 with no indication of any consumer confusion.

The survey can be enough, Gilchrist argued, again referencing other Sleekcraft factors he said would weigh in World Champ’s favor.

Judges Bridget S. Bade and Consuelo M. Callahan joined the panel.

The case is World Champ Tech LLC v. Peloton Interactive Inc., 9th Cir., No. 24-2266, hearing 6/3/25.