Juul files suits against ‘copycat’ e-cigarette rivals

Reuters October 4, 2018
New York Post
Juul Labs, the e-cigarette maker at the heart of a US crackdown on youth vaping, has filed patent infringement complaints in the United States and Europe against what it said were copycat rivals.
The complaints follow the seizure last week by US health regulators of more than 1,000 pages of documents from Juul Labs about its sales and marketing practices, as they investigate growing e-cigarette use among young people that threatens to create a new generation of nicotine addicts.
Juul, which controls nearly three quarters of the US e-cigarette market, filed a complaint on Wednesday with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) naming 18 entities, most of them based in the United States or China, accusing them of developing and selling products based on its patented technology.
The complaint, made public on Thursday, asks the ITC to prevent the importation of the products into the United States and their sale.
Silicon Valley-based startup Juul gained prominence in the United States in just a few years, helped by its high nicotine content and sleek, flash drive-size device. Its breakneck growth and popularity in high schools across the country has attracted scrutiny from government officials and regulators.
It also sparked a wave of lower-priced rivals.
“The rapid proliferation of products infringing on our intellectual property continues to increase as our market share grows,” Kevin Burns, Juul’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.
“Protecting consumers and preventing underage use are critical priorities, and we will take decisive action where available to restrict illegal copy-cat products that undermine our efforts.”
Juul said many of those rival products appear to be sold with little or no age verification processes and appear to target young people with flavors such as “bubble bubble” and “sour gummy.”