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Tag: patent

  • Juul, NJOY, and Altria Battle Over Public Document Case

    Juul, NJOY, and Altria Battle Over Public Document Case

    Juul Labs asked a federal court in Arizona to block rivals NJOY and Altria from using documents hosted in a public University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) database, according to a joint court filing dated December 24. The dispute arises in an ongoing patent lawsuit, with Juul arguing that some documents were inadvertently disclosed during a large-scale production tied to state settlement agreements and remain protected by attorney–client privilege.

    NJOY and Altria oppose the request, saying the documents have been publicly accessible online for months or years and are therefore no longer privileged. They argue the materials may contain evidence relevant to alleged misconduct in Juul’s patent filings. After failed negotiations, the issue has been submitted to U.S. District Judge John J. Tuchi, who will decide whether the publicly available documents can be excluded from use in the litigation.

  • USITC Launches Probe Following Juul Complaint

    USITC Launches Probe Following Juul Complaint

    The U.S. International Trade Commission instituted a Section 337 investigation after a complaint filed by Juul Labs, Inc. and VMR Products LLC alleging patent infringement involving certain vaporizer devices, cartridges, and related components. The complaint, filed on September 30 and supplemented in November and December, asserts infringement of two U.S. patents—Nos. 11,134,722 and 11,606,981—through the importation and sale of the accused products in the United States. The investigation covers ENDS devices, pods, and components such as atomizers and subassemblies.

    Juul and VMR, both based in Washington, D.C., are seeking a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders. The named respondents are Glas, Inc. and Glas, LLC of Los Angeles. The USITC said its Office of Unfair Import Investigations will not participate in the case.

  • PMI Retains European Vape Patent

    PMI Retains European Vape Patent

    European patent officials tossed a challenge from a British American Tobacco subsidiary allowing Philip Morris to retain its patent for a type of power supply for electronic vapes.

    The patent from PMI primarily describes a power supply system for an e-vaping device, including a sensor and a sensor holder designed to regulate airflow and house a power source. Nicoventures claimed the patent was not new because it used similar features in three older patents for its “Vuse Solo.” The BAT side argued that there were several features in the older patents that effectively served as sensor holders similar to the PMI design.

    In a Feb. 20 decision that was published yesterday (March 5), the appellate board at the European Patent Office upheld an earlier decision dismissing Nicoventures’ opposition because Philip Morris’ power supply design contains a unique structure.

    “The board concurs with the respondent’s arguments [that] the structure of the e-vaping device in [the older inventions] and the patent are not identical,” the Technical Board of Appeal said.

    PMI further argued that Nicoventures failed to prove that Vuse Solo “was available to the public before it filed its own patent application, therefore Nicoventures cannot argue that its design is not new,” Law360 wrote.