- Alpinestars telah mengeluarkan jawapan mereka mengenai kes Mahkamah Rayuan Munich.
- Mahkamah berkenaan telah membuat keputusan yang memihak dengan Dainese.
- Alpinestars tetap dengan pendirian bahawa mereka tidak mencabuli hak paten Dainese.
Alpinestars (A-Star) published their response to the recent German court decision with regards to a patent infringement case involving fellow Italian gear maker Dainese.
The decision by the Munich Court of Appeals will cause a huge effect to A-Stars’ Tech-Air airbag vests in the German market. In siding with Dainese, the court has issued an injunction against selling the product in the country. In addition to having their products pulled from the shelves, A-Stars also need to pay a huge sum in damages.
A-Stars is challenging Dainese’s charge that the they infringed on the latter’s patents. Judging from the wordings and language in the Press Release, the fight is not over. It’s going to be the Clash of Italian Titans.
The focal point of the contention is how the airbag vest is held in a garment.
On February 7, 2019 the Higher Regional Court of Munich issued judgment upholding the claim that Alpinestars’ Tech-Air® vest infringes upon patent EP 2 412 257 B1 held by Dainese S.p.A.
Alpinestars wants to clarify that this action never involved the core of Alpinestars Tech-Air® technology; at no point, either past or present, has any action or patent infringement involved the electronic management, algorithm, or deployment mechanism, or any other part employed within Alpinestars entirely unique and advanced Tech-Air® technology.
Furthermore this judgment is limited to the territory of Germany only. It has no bearing on any other territories within Europe or the wider world market where Tech-Air® is available throughout Alpinestars’ Dealer network.
Originally Dainese alleged infringements based on three patents in Germany, none of them refer to Tech-Air® technology: one complaint was withdrawn by Dainese on 22nd December 2016, relating to patent EP 2 373 188, after this patent was revoked by the European Patent Office. The remaining two patents have been contested in Germany. The second, EP 2 373 190, concerning only some specific features of the air bladder used in the Tech-Air® vest, was wholly annulled by the German Federal Patent Court on 15 May 2018. Dainese appealed this decision.
The third, EP 2 412 257 B1, concerning the general installation of an inflatable air bladder construction within a ‘pocket’ of a garment, featuring elastic panels, is the point on which the patent infringement claim was upheld last week. As soon as the Court serves the written judgment, Alpinestars will study the details prior to taking any decision on its next steps.
Alpinestars needs to point out that it has an appeal pending on the validity of this patent (EP 2 412 257 B1) within the German Federal Court of Justice.
As consistently stated throughout this legal process, Alpinestars fully respects and honors third parties’ intellectual property rights and expects the same with respect to its own IP rights. Alpinestars’ highly innovative Tech-Air® products are based upon years of its in house research and development conducted by its own team of leading research and development staff.
Since the very beginning of the Tech-Air® project, which commenced in 2001, the freedom to ride with the most advanced innovations of performance protection has been the objective relentlessly pursued by Alpinestars and the result is uniquely advanced and capable technology. Tech-Air® is the world’s first airbag providing full upper torso protection in a transferable vest which incorporates a completely independent electronic management system, with no reliance on any external devices (sensors or GPS), to give accident detection and full airbag inflation before the first impact, dual charge for the track and off-road capability as demonstrated in the 2019 Dakar Rally.
Alpinestars’ Tech-Air® products represent an enormously innovative contribution to increased rider safety in motorcycling.
The Alpinestars vs Dainese legal saga over their respective airbag technologies continues further now with Dainese speaking out about the situation. Though Alpinestars’ response did clear up a few things, this new response from the devil-horn brand has shed even more light into the situation.
In its response, Dainese insists that legal action was taken in Germany, resulting in a Munich court granting an injunction on Alpinestars selling its Tech Air-equipped product in the German market. Dainese further highlighted that legal action is presently being processed in Italy.
This counters Alpinestars’ initial response where it stated that no legal action was taken against it in Germany. However, it appears that the clarification about the patent infringement lawsuit being centred on the physical material used to produce the inflatable airbags in both the Alpinestars Tech Air and Dainese D-Air Armor remains true.
Either way, the outcome of the Alpinestars vs Dainese saga will have global repercussions on several levels indeed. Lets not forget that both brands have top-level riders in both MotoGP and WSBK donning their products, and the outcome of this battle may lead to just one side winning the rights to produce airbag-equipped riding apparels.
You can read Dainese’s response here to get where the devil horn brand is coming from in this entire affair.
Source: Asphaltandrubber
Loyal readers would remember our Alpinestars vs Dainese report we published some time last week. Just to recap, the two Italian riding apparels brands are embroiled in a legal battle of their respective airbag technologies, in which case being the Alpinestars Tech Air and Dainese D-Air Armour.
In light of the battle being reported online by a trusted source, the famed A-star brand has issued an official response to the matter, revealing the true nature of the legal battle in the process as well.
The first thing made clear in Alpinestars’ statement is the fact that the infringement suit it filed for its Tech Air airbag technology patent actual concerns the material of the airbag itself and not the computer algorithm deployment during crash detection as previously reported.
To put it simply, Alpinestars is claiming that Dainese is using a similar physical material for the airbag in the latter’s D-Air suite as the ones used in the former’s rivalling Tech Air system. The consequence of this saw retailers pulling out Tech Air-equipped Alpinestars apparels and products in core markets around Europe such as Germany.
Dainese has not responded to Alpinestars’ allegations, but it is worth noting again that the rivalling devil-horn brand were the most proactive amongst the two at introducing the airbag protection technology into the mass market. In fact, Dainese have even gone to the extent of licensing its D-Air Armor technology to other brands as well.
We’ll have more as soon as the matter evolves over time, to which we expect to last quite some time indeed. In the meantime, you can read the official statement released by Alpinestars below.
Alpinestars Tech-Air Street Airbag system – Statement regarding press coverage of Patent Challenge
With reference to recent articles published about Alpinestars and Dainese being in dispute over airbag technology, Alpinestars is issuing the following statement to clarify the current situation:
Alpinestars has been subjected to an allegation of patent infringement by Dainese on a specific part of its airbag construction used in the Tech-Air Street system.
The Alpinestars’ Tech-Air Street system was launched in November 2014 as the world’s first self-contained street airbag system that independently functions without the need for sensors to be installed on the bike and the subsequent need to link a specific motorcycle to the airbag system used by the rider.
The allegations made by Dainese S.p.A in proceedings launched in Italy against Alpinestars, refer to the assembly of the bag itself, the physical material piece that contains the gas in an inflation and not with any reference to any other parts or Alpinestars’ Tech-Air street system’s use of an algorithm for registering when the airbag deployment should occur.
Dainese instead make claims that the physical construction of the bag in the Tech-Air system infringes upon Dainese’s patents.
In Germany, Dainese did make a direct request to certain retailers, that they cease and desist from offering for sale the Alpinestars Tech-Air Street system, however, no legal action has been taken against Alpinestars and neither has Alpinestars withdrawn any of its products from the German market.
All claims made by Dainese against Alpinestars and/or its retailers are disputed and Alpinestars is taking the appropriate legal measures to ensure that any such unfounded allegations will not prevent distribution and sales of the Tech-Air Street system.
Given Alpinestars’ own research & development has been undertaken through Alpinestars’ in-house Advanced Technology Department since 2001, Alpinestars is contesting the allegations made. The Tech-Air Street system is based on Alpinestars’ technology creation and the physical bag used in the Tech-Air Street system is from known airbag technology, used within the Automotive industry and does not infringe upon third parties’ intellectual property rights.
Alpinestars continues to distribute Tech-Air technology for the benefit of all motorcyclists throughout Europe and the rest of the world and trusts that the allegations made will be proven to have no basis through appropriate legal jurisdiction.
Source: Alpinestars via Asphaltandrubber
Two of motorcycling’s biggest and leading apparels brands are tangled in a legal battle over a groundbreaking piece of safety technology. The two are none other than Alpinestars and Dainese, and the tech in question are their respective Tech Air and D-Air airbag technologies. (more…)
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