DITTO is a company that sells software that aids eyewear companies sell their products online using virtual fitting. Originally DITTO was a retailer that sold designer prescription

eyeglasses Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples or ...

and

sunglasses Sunglasses or sun glasses (informally called shades or sunnies; more names below) are a form of protective eyewear designed primarily to prevent bright sunlight and high-energy visible light from damaging or discomforting the eyes. They can s ...

. The company is based in

San Francisco, CA San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. It used virtual fitting technology to let customers try on frames from a computer. The technology measures a user’s face by homing in on pupils, ears, cheekbones, ears and other facial landmarks, and then came back with images of dozens of different pairs of glasses that might be a good fit.

History

DITTO was founded in 2011 in

Mountain View, CA Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the ...

by Kate Endress, Sergey Surkov, and Dmitry Kornilov. Currently the company is headquartered in

with fulfillment and distribution operations in

Evansville, IN Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...

. In April 2012 the company announced that it had picked up $3 million in funding from a group of investors led by

August Capital August Capital, legally August Capital Master Management Company, LLC, is a venture capital firm founded by David Marquardt and John Johnston in 1995. It is focused on information technology and is based in Menlo Park, California. Company Aug ...

. At the end of February 2017 DITTO sent an email to its customers explaining that its online eyewear e-commerce and eyewear distribution would be closing down. No reason was given, they still appear to sell the technology they used to use for a virtual fitting of their eyewear.

Products

DITTO's product line included prescription and non-prescription designer eyeglasses and sunglasses. The company carried brands such as

Ray-Ban Ray-Ban is an American-Italian brand of luxury sunglasses and eyeglasses created in 1936 by Bausch & Lomb. The brand is known for its Wayfarer and Aviator lines of sunglasses. In 1999, Bausch & Lomb sold the brand to Italian eyewear conglomerate ...

Persol Persol is an Italian eyewear brand specializing in the manufacturing of sunglasses and optical frames. It is one of the oldest eyewear companies in the world and is owned by the Luxottica group. The name is derived from the Italian ''per il sol ...

Chloé Chloé () is a French luxury fashion house founded in 1952 by Gaby Aghion. During the next year of 1953 Aghion joined forces with Jacques Lenoir, formally managing the business side of the brand, allowing Aghion to purely pursue the creativ ...

TAG Heuer TAG Heuer S.A. ( ) is a Swiss luxury watchmaker that designs, manufactures and markets watches and fashion accessories, as well as eyewear and mobile phones manufactured under license by other companies and carrying the TAG Heuer brand name. Th ...

, and

Vera Wang Vera Ellen Wang (; born June 27, 1949) is an American fashion designer. Early life Vera Ellen Wang was born June 27, 1949 in New York City to Chinese parents who emigrated to the United States in the mid-1940s. Her mother, Florence Wu (Wu ...

, as well as niche fashion and boutique brands like

Jason Wu Jason Wu (; born September 27, 1982) is a Taiwanese-Canadian artist and fashion designer based in New York City. Born in Taiwan and raised in Vancouver, he studied fashion design at Parsons School of Design, and trained under Narciso Rodrigu ...

Selima Optique Selima may refer to: People * Selima, a character in the film '' The Sleeping Dictionary'' (2003) * Selima Hill (born 1945), a British poet * Selima Kurumova (1914–1968), a Chechen writer * Selima Murad (c. 1905–1974), an Iraqi Jewish singe ...

, Alain Mikli, Anglo American, and

John Varvatos John Varvatos (born 1954) is an American menswear designer. Early life The Varvatos family is originally from the village of Poulata on the island of Kefalonia, Greece. Varvatos was born in Detroit and grew up in Allen Park, Michigan. He ...

Patent infringement lawsuits

In May 2013, DITTO was sued by

1-800 Contacts 1-800 Contacts Inc. is an American contact lens retailer based in Draper, Utah. The brands that 1-800 Contacts use includes Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Alcon, Bausch & Lomb and CooperVision. The company was founded as the industry's first wa ...

and another company called Lennon Imaging Technology for Patent Infringement. The

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

claimed that 1-800 Contacts is abusing patent law by acting like a

patent troll In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or ...

in its lawsuit against DITTO. In a blog post, the EFF accused 1-800 Contacts of “leveraging the massive expense of patent litigation to squelch the competition” and asked its followers to help DITTO by

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...

prior art. The lawsuit by Lennon Imaging Technologies was dismissed on October 7, 2013 without prejudice.Ha, Anthony
"the company was actually facing two suits, including one from Lennon, which is a "non-practicing" company that owns intellectual property but doesn’t offer any products or services of its own. A judge has granted Ditto’s motion to have Lennon’s lawsuit dismissed"
''Techcrunch'', 12 October 2013. Retrieved on 24 October 2013.

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Official website
Companies based in San Mateo, California Companies established in 2011 Privately held companies based in California Companies based in Silicon Valley Eyewear companies of the United States Sunglasses