Many of you may have heard about Muzz, a platform for Muslims to meet and marry. But not many have heard the story of how it became Muzz?
It all started in 2016, when the dating app giant Match Group, which owns Match.com, Tinder, and OkCupid, among other brands, started a legal battle against Shahzad Younas’ app.
Younas, who is now 38, developed the website, now known as Muzz, back in 2015. The app, like the site, included a red heart logo. A year later, Younas registered the trademark for the name “Muzmatch” in the United States and applied for one in the European Union.
The two apps were engaged in a legal battle since then over the name. The major blow Younas received was in 2021 when he lost a trademark appeal in the United Kingdom.
His website, originally named Muzmatch, was forced to drop the word “match” and rebrand as simply Muzz.
“It’s been a huge time sink,” Younas told Al Jazeera. “It’s exhausted me and cost us nearly $2 million, which for [Match] is a small change, but it affects us and is a meaningful amount of money for us. We’ve wasted all this money on legal fees that could’ve gone on something better.”
The dispute over the name was started in 2016, when Match Group lawyers contacted him, asking him to withdraw the trademark for the name. However, Younas refused to remove the word “match” from his trademark.
In 2017, Muzmatch got accepted into startup accelerator Y Combinator and raised over $1.75m in seed funding. In the following year, Match offered a whopping $15m to Younas for the app. He refused and claimed that they returned with higher offers and a final one of $35m.
In 2019, Match had accused Muzzmatch of violating its patent for the swipe gesture and accusing it of cyber-piracy. The group also filed a lawsuit against Younas’ app. Younas settled, removing any swiping from his app.
But then came the UK trademark case. In April 2022 it lost the case in the UK on its right to use the name Muzmatch and had to rebrand itself as Muzz.
A Match spokesperson said they have always known that Muzmatch has unfairly benefitted from our reputation and investment in their brands and was unrightfully riding Match Group’s coattails for its own gain. “This has now been confirmed, not only by one but two Courts.”
