Greater than a decade in the past, when Shahzad Younas began an internet site particularly for Muslims to fulfill and marry, he thought his issues could be the everyday variety – attracting customers, increasing the enterprise, incomes a revenue.
He was unsuitable. As an alternative, his greatest hurdle has been determining methods to fend off a competitor that’s suing him in a number of international locations on a number of fronts with the goal, he mentioned, of “stifling competitors”.
Younas, 38, a British funding banker turned entrepreneur, has been butting heads since 2016 with the net courting big Match Group, which owns Match.com, Tinder and OkCupid, amongst different manufacturers.
At problem are parts of his web site’s branding – parts that Match has argued create confusion between its platforms and Younas’s.
The newest blow got here in late April when Younas misplaced a trademark enchantment in the UK. His web site, initially named Muzmatch, was compelled to drop the phrase “match” and rebrand as merely Muzz.
This was not a state of affairs that Younas anticipated when he began his web site from his London residence in 2011 whereas working full time at Morgan Stanley.
“It’s been an enormous time sink,” Younas instructed Al Jazeera. “It’s exhausted me and value us almost $2 million, which for [Match] is small change, nevertheless it impacts us and is a significant amount of cash for us. We’ve wasted all this cash on authorized charges that would’ve gone on one thing higher.”
At stake are thousands and thousands of {dollars} in earnings. The worldwide courting market was valued at $8.9bn in 2021 and is predicted to develop at a compounded annual price of 6.9 p.c from 2022 to 2030, in line with the consulting agency Grand View Analysis.
In 2022, Match Group reported a web revenue of $360m on revenues of $3.18bn. Younas, in the meantime, declined to share Muzz’s annual revenues however mentioned the enterprise is worthwhile and has near 9 million customers.
‘Muslims don’t date, they marry’
Younas began the web site as a discussion board the place single Muslims hoping to get married might join. “Muslims don’t date, they marry,” he likes to say, and that was the chance he was providing.
As customers within the early 2010s moved more and more to cellular platforms over web sites, Younas give up his Morgan Stanley job in 2014 to spend six months constructing an app model of his web site. It launched in 2015.
The app, like the positioning, included a pink coronary heart emblem. A yr later, Younas registered the trademark for the title “Muzmatch” in america and utilized for one within the European Union.
That’s when his issues began.
In 2016, Match Group legal professionals contacted him, asking him to withdraw the trademark for the title. It argued that the branding – together with a reputation that included the phrase “match” – would create confusion, main customers to imagine Muzmatch was a Match property.
However Younas refused to take away the phrase “match” from his trademark. He argued that “match” was a standard phrase, one chosen to evoke traditions of matchmaking. Younas added that he did, nonetheless, take away the guts emblem at Match’s request.
Finally, Younas mentioned, he didn’t get his firm’s title trademarked within the EU on Match’s objections however registered it as a substitute within the UK.
In 2017, Muzmatch obtained accepted into startup accelerator Y Combinator, the place it raised $1.75m in seed funding.
A yr later, Match obtained in contact once more, this time with a proposal to purchase Muzmatch for $15m, Younas mentioned. When Younas refused, he mentioned that Match returned with greater provides and a ultimate certainly one of $35m.
“I struggled to see how they might profit us,” Younas mentioned. On the time, he was attracting thousands and thousands of {dollars} in Collection A investments, the early financing that may assist a startup generate buzz. “Their provide didn’t excite me in any respect.”
Battle traces
Since then, the battle traces have been firmly drawn.
In 2019, Match filed a lawsuit in opposition to Muzmatch within the courting big’s house state of Texas, alleging the startup had violated its patent for the swipe gesture and accusing it of cyber-piracy. Younas settled, eradicating any swiping from his app.
However then got here the UK trademark case. In April 2022 it misplaced the case within the UK on its proper to make use of the title Muzmatch and needed to rebrand itself as Muzz. Decide Nicholas Caddick dominated that Muzmatch’s title and branding might certainly lead some customers to imagine it was related to the Match conglomerate.
Younas filed an enchantment, however a day after the listening to, Match submitted a brand new lawsuit accusing his platform of patent infringement over the digital matching course of. The 2 sides proceed to be in discussions over the difficulty.
The appeals courtroom finally sided with Match within the trademark infringement case.
A Match spokesperson applauded the ruling in a press release to Al Jazeera.
“We’ve at all times recognized that Muzmatch has unfairly benefitted from our popularity and funding in our manufacturers and was unrightfully driving Match Group’s coattails for its personal achieve,” it mentioned. “This has now been confirmed, not solely by one, however two Courts.”
Younas, in the meantime, maintains his perception that it is a case of David vs Goliath, a small startup squaring off in opposition to a well-heeled rival. “We at all times knew the percentages of a profitable enchantment weren’t in our favour,” he mentioned.
Previously, Match Group has additionally sued rival courting apps like Bumble and Tantan. With Bumble, it reached an settlement to dismiss its case. With TanTan, it settled. And Match itself was sued after it acquired the app Tinder. The app’s co-founders accused the corporate of manipulating knowledge and lowballing Tinder’s worth to make sure a extra beneficial merger. Match finally settled the criticism.
For now, Younas has taken his battle to social media, the place he has tweeted and TikTok-ed concerning the startup’s authorized travails with Match. He has been tagging the US Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) within the hope that its regulators might intervene.
However that’s not essentially an avenue that he ought to rely on, specialists warned.
“It may be unlawful underneath US antitrust regulation for a enterprise with market or monopoly energy to hammer rivals with baseless litigation, however to win it’s a must to present that the swimsuit was actually past the pale: objectively baseless and a bad-faith effort to squash rivals,” mentioned Daniel Francis, a regulation professor at New York College and former deputy director for antitrust on the FTC.
“If the lawsuit is profitable, even in a decrease courtroom, that’s fairly conclusive proof that it’s not past the pale, so if Match prevailed on its claims in courtroom, then it’s fairly clear that the litigation didn’t violate the antitrust legal guidelines – even when it made life more durable for a smaller rival,” Francis added.
Younas nonetheless has his hopes up. “The litigation within the UK was a easy trademark dispute,” he mentioned. “It was not assessing Match Group on an anti-trust measure.”
