Tinder’s parent company files lawsuit against Muslim relationship app Muzmatch for infringing patent
LONDON - Match Group Ltd, the parent company of popular dating app Tinder, has filed a lawsuit against UK-based Muslim relationship and marriage app Muzmatch.
Match is suing Muzmatch for “committing acts of patent infringement and/or has induced and/or has contributed to acts of patent infringement”.
The Dallas-based company filed the lawsuit on February 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas Waco Division.
According to court documents seen by Salaam Gateway, Match is accusing Muzmatch of copying Tinder.
The Tinder app is characterized by a stack of cards containing photographs of potential connections nearby. If a user is interested in a particular person, they “swipe” right. Users “swipe” left if they are not keen on someone. If two users are interested in each other, they can communicate through the app.
Similar to Tinder, Muzmatch also allows users to swipe, match, and chat through the app.
“Muzmatch sought to mimic the Tinder app’s functionality, trade off of Match’s name, brand, and general look and feel, meet user expectations that Match created, and build a business entirely on a Tinder-clone, distinguished only by Muzmatch’s Muslim cultural-specific marketing strategy. All of these actions infringe upon Match’s valid and enforceable intellectual property rights,” according to Match’s court filing.
Muzmatch started in 2015, three years after Tinder was officially released.
The Muslim-focused app has shown impressive growth and financial investment in the last five years. It says on its website that it is backed with a total of $9 million in Seed and Series A investments from a range of Silicon Valley and global investors.
Users can access basic features for free or pay to go premium for a monthly fee in return for extra features, such as unlimited swipes and more advanced search filters.
The app says it now has over 4 million users in countries including UK, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey.
This is not the first time Match has filed lawsuits against other platforms for infringing its intellectual property. In 2018, it sued and faced a counter suit from Bumble, a popular dating site which recently conducted its IPO. Both suits were later dropped that year. In June last year, both companies said they had reached an agreement to settle all litigations. The settlement details were not disclosed.
Representatives from Match and Muzmatch contacted by Salaam Gateway declined to comment.
(Reporting by Hassan Jivraj; Editing by Emmy Abdul Alim [email protected])
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