Polaroid Sues GoPro Over Hero4 Session Design

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C&M Marketing – the producer of Polaroid cameras, is suing US based and ubiquitous on-board camera giant GoPro over its design for the Hero4 Session camera.

GoPro Hero4 Session Polaroid Cube singletrack magazine singletrackworld.com
GoPro Hero4 Session/Polaroid Cube

The Polaroid Cube, for which C&M Marketing holds a design patent awarded to them in May earlier this year, and the GoPro Hero4 Session certainly have a lot in common, at least visually. In a statement and C&M Marketing spokesperson said, “We invested considerable resources in the design and development of a unique product with the Polaroid Cube. It has rounded edges, a slightly recessed lens and a single button on top – all important design elements, all used as well by GoPro for its Hero 4 Session.”

Perhaps cheekily, the Polaroid Cube website describes the Cube thus..

“The Original – No pro required… durable, easy and fun! It’s hip to be CUBE.”  (Our emphasis)

GoPro on the other hand have denied that their product is similar to the Polaroid product and claim that they designed the Hero4 Session before Polaroid applied for its design patent. The Polaroid Cube was released in 2014.

An IP expert quoted by the BBC suggests the key to the case will likely rest on GoPro’s ability to show that the cube shape alone is not a design aspect unique to these two brands products.

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Mark Alker

Singletrack Owner/Publisher

What Mark doesn’t know about social media isn’t worth knowing and his ability to balance “The Stack” is bested only by his agility on a snowboard. Graphs are what gets his engine revving, at least they would if his car wasn’t electric, and data is what you’ll find him poring over in the office. Mark enjoys good whisky, sci-fi and the latest Apple gadget, he is also the best boss in the world (Yes, he is paying me to write this).

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Comments (6)

    benjibenji November 5, 2015 at 1:10 pm

    Thank god nobody patented the wheel first, otherwise you can only imagine the law suits.

    BenBen November 5, 2015 at 2:03 pm

    The whole concept of design patents is totally backwards.

    ‘Hey look I made something look like a cube’,
    ‘me too’
    ‘I’m going to sue your ass off’
    ‘Did you invent the cube?’
    ‘Umm, no’
    ‘Quite’

    40mpg40mpg November 5, 2015 at 4:03 pm

    Mr Rubik must be quaking in his boots

    dogmatixdogmatix November 5, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    erm…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_%28camera%29

    The PinksterThe Pinkster November 6, 2015 at 11:00 am

    Don’t thing Go-Pro woulsd have too much to worry about TBH as I can’t see the Polaroid Cube being much use for the sort of things we all do anyway. The mounting system is a magnet, which they claim –

    “Simply pop the camera onto your helmet, skateboard, bicycle handlebar, golf club, or any other metal surface, and it’ll stick with you through thick and thin.”

    Who wears a metal helmet? don’t think it’d work too well with Ali & Carbon either.

    Steve PhippsSteve Phipps November 7, 2015 at 12:12 pm

    So we can own the rights to 3 dimensional shapes now? Strange that I hadn’t heard of the Polaroid thing and now I have. I might have bought one if this didn’t make it sound like Polaroid were run by five year olds. And if the camera was any good…

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