Tinder Is Suing Bumble For Allegedly Stealing Its Ideas

Tinder and Bumble are taking their rivalry to court over accusations of Bumble copying Tinder’s matchmaking system.

Tinder’s parent company “Match Group,” is allegedly suing Bumble for stealing two patented ideas. The first one for its swipe feature, and the second for its layout. Bumble was created by former Tinder employees and the lawsuit claims those employees stole confidential Tinder information, which they included in Bumble — like Tinder’s feature of being able to go back if you accidentally skip someone.

The odd thing is, Match Group kind of wants to buy Bumble. Last year, it reportedly tried to acquire Bumble for $50 million, but Bumble didn’t take the bait. However, according to Recode, this could be another tactic to get Bumble to sell:

“The easiest way to make it [sic] a patent infringement suit go away would be to join the company that owns the patent.”

Match owns companies like OkCupid and Match.com and stated to NowThis, “Match Group has invested significant resources and creative expertise in the development of our industry-leading suite of products. We are committed to protecting the intellectual property and proprietary data that defines out business. Accordingly, we are prepared when necessary to enforce out patents and other intellectual property rights against any operator in the dating space who infringes upon this rights.”