Earlier this year Polaroid announced the WiFi-enabled Cube+ action camera. However it wasn’t too long after that GoPro announced the Hero4 Session, which based on its looks alone seemed to be more or less similar to what Polaroid had announced the month before. The specs and features are obviously different, but from a design standpoint they look similar.
So much so that it doesn’t really come as a surprise to learn that Polaroid has decided to sue GoPro, claiming that the company had infringed upon their design patent, which according to them was awarded in May earlier this year. This was also well before GoPro had officially announced anything, and according to GoPro, they had begun development of the Hero4 Session prior to that.
According to Polaroid’s patent, it describes, “The ornamental design for a cubic action camera, as shown and described.” This is a rather vague description and would seem to apply to all cameras that are cube-shaped. As pointed out by The Wall Street Journal, there are several other brands who have similar-shaped cameras.
Canon is one of those notable brands so we have to wonder if Polaroid could be thinking about going after them next. In any case it remains to be seen how this lawsuit will play out, but in the meantime does Polaroid have a case against GoPro?