- 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alleged infringements based on three patents in Germany, none of them refer to Tech-Air® technology: one complaint was withdrawn by Dainese on 22nd December 2016, relating to patent EP 2 373 188, after this patent was revoked by the European Patent Office.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 Munich Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Dainese in their airbag patent infringement suit against Alpinestars (A-stars).
The case had been going on since 2015. A German court found Alpinestars had infringed on the patent previously in 2017. A-Stars brought the case to the Munich Court of Appeals and they lost again. Their next and last course of action is to refer the case to the German Federal Supreme Court.
Dainese sued A-stars in 2015 after finding the latter had copied an essential part of the D-air vest. The part was then used in A-stars’ Tech-Air airbag vests, without payment to Dainese for licensing.
A-stars could well be in deep trouble, pending the German Supreme Court appeal. Dainese did not only file litigations in Germany. They also sued A-stars in Italy, the United Kingdom and France. The litigation floodgates could swing open in those countries should they lose in the German Supreme Court.
The confusion started in 2015 when Dainese released the D-air technology as an open platform as a responsibility to rider safety. This meant that other riding gear manufacturers can use the technology in their own products. But that did not mean they shouldn’t pay Dainese to use the patented technology. Unfortunately, this was what A-stars did.
So, what happens now? If A-stars loses their last appeal, German riders may not be able to keep their Tech Air vests. There’s no word of the case in other countries, so far but we’ll keep you posted as soon as we hear of something.
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
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