Peugeot to pay €1 million euro in damages to Piaggo for MP3 patent infringement
Italy’s supreme court of appeals, the Corte di Cassazione, has ruled in favor of the Piaggio Group in the case involving its MP3 three-wheeled scooter patent. Peugeot Motocycles SAS and Peugeot Motocycles Italia filed an appeal in the Milan Court after the first judgment was ruled against them in January 2023. The Court of Milan has upheld that Peugeot Metropolis and Peugeot entities infringed the Italian portion of a Piaggio & C. S.p.A. European patent.
Piaggio & C. S.p.A. owns the patent for the MP3 tilting three-wheel scooter, which specifically relates to the control system that enables a three-wheel vehicle to tilt sideways like a conventional motorcycle.
The Corte di Cassazione did not issue a ruling on the merits of the appeal lodged by Peugeot Motorcycles SAS and Peugeot Motorcycles Italia – which raised six pleas – but dismissed it as inadmissible, given that the appellants had requested (new) investigations, which the supreme court is precluded from conducting, and had raised objections to alleged defects in the grounds of the ruling of the court of appeal, which the supreme court considered to be imprecise and non-specific.
The pronouncement of the final court of appeal confirms the previous ruling of the Court of Appeal of Milan and so definitively establishes that the Italian portion of the Piaggio & C. S.p.A. European patent was infringed, the injunction against Peugeot Motocycles Italia, in the Italian territory, of the import, export, marketing and advertising (including online) of the Peugeot Metropolis, and that Piaggio & C. S.p.A. is entitled to receive damages.
With its sentence, the Milan Court of Appeal ordered that Peugeot Motocycles Italia will be required to pay Piaggio more than €1 million euro due to the infringement.
