Mips AB, the Stockholm, Sweden-based helmet safety tech company, has agreed to pay $3.2 million to BrainGuard Technologies to settle patent infringement claims brought against Revelyst and its helmet brands.
Filed in 2024 in the U.S. District Court in California against Vista Outdoor, Inc. and Revelyst Sales LLC, MIPS became involved a year later because Revelyst is one of its customers. Vista sold its Revelyst business unit, including bike brands Bell, Giro and Fox Racing, to Strategic Value Partners in 2025.
Located in El Cerrito, CA, BrainGuard Technologies alleged Revelyst infringed on several of its patents used in Bell, Giro and Fox MIPS bikes, motorsports and snow sports helmets.
In the litigation, Revelyst/Mips asserted that the BrainGuard patents were invalid and raised numerous affirmative defenses. Neither Mips’ own patents nor Mips as a company were directly part of the lawsuit, but as the dispute concerned technology areas where Mips has “strong and broad global intellectual property rights that are an important cornerstone of Mips’ strong market position and customer offering, Mips chose to get involved to support its customer.”
The agreed settlement entails a stop to all ongoing litigation, releases all alleged claims and prevents existing or future claims based on the asserted patents against Mips or any of Mips’ customers, thereby allowing full and free continued commercial activity.
The decision to enter a settlement was based on “avoiding the costs and uncertainties of litigation while enabling Mips and Revelyst to focus on commercial growth.” Mips continued, “Nothing in the settlement shall be construed as an admission of liability, wrongdoing or infringement by Mips or Revelyst.”
The $3.2 million payout will negatively impact Mip’s adjusted operating profit in the third quarter of 2026.
“As an innovation-driven world leader in helmet safety technology solutions, with a broad customer base among leading helmet brands, we at Mips will at all times forcefully defend our own intellectual property rights against potential threats, as we have done in the past, and strive to ensure both Mips and our customers’ freedom to operate in commercializing solutions that make helmets safer. From the outset of this case, we have been, and remain, convinced that there were never any grounds for the alleged infringement raised against our customer,” stated Max Strandwitz, CEO of Mips.
“At times, it may still be better for commercial reasons to agree on a settlement than to pursue lengthy and expensive litigation, as we decided jointly with our customer in this specific case. Infringement-related litigation will always be part of a global leading technology company’s world, but I am now very happy to have this specific case behind us, allowing us to focus on our continued successful growth journey,” concluded Strandwitz.
Image courtesy Mips
