Dainese has won the latest stage in a patent infringement dispute with Alpinestars concerning the sale of Alpinestars' Tech-Air airbag vests in Germany. In February a judge at the Munich Court of Appeals ruled that Alpinestars' product had infringed on the EU airbag patent that Dainese has to protect its D-air technology.
The decision confirms a lower court ruling from 2017 that the Tech-Air street airbag vest (for road use) and Tech-Air racing airbag vest (for track use and road), manufactured and marketed by Alpinestars, infringed on Dainese’s European patent EP 2 412 257 B1. This latest decision is only now appealable at the German Federal Supreme Court.
The finding prohibits Alpinestars from "commercialising the Tech-Air street airbag vests and Tech-Air racing airbag vests in Germany; orders Alpinestars to recall any such vests which Alpinestars has supplied since 1 July 2015, and which are still in the possession of commercial customers in Germany, and orders Alpinestars to compensate Dainese for all damages suffered due to the sale of the infringing vests in Germany since 1 July 2015".
This decision is a major victory for Dainese in an intensive patent litigation fight against Alpinestars in Italy, Germany, the UK and France.
Dainese had originally accused its rival of three patent breaches, however, one was withdrawn at the end of 2016, after the Dainese application was revoked by the European Patent Office. Another, which centred on specific features of the Tech-Air vest air bladder, was declined by the German Federal Patent Court in 2018 - a decision that Dainese is appealing.
The decision in February this year found Alpinestars in contravention of a third patent that centres on the installation of an inflatable air bladder within an elastic panel constructed garment pocket - a finding that applies to Germany only.
Alpinestars has an appeal pending on the validity of this patent within the German Federal Court of Justice and is saying that the patent infringement does not, in fact, relate to the core technology used in the Tech-Air vest, stating that it 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".
