Chinese vape giant Smoore has been granted $5.4m in a trademark infringement suit against more than 100 defendants.
The defendants, who were located in China but selling to customers in the US and elsewhere, were accused of selling counterfeit Smoore goods, including Vaporesso products.
The default judgement is for $50,000 per defendant which will transfer to the company from the frozen assets of each respective business.
Smoore also settled with a ‘significant number’ of defendant sellers who paid compensation for their infringement and identified their suppliers to investigators.
A spokesperson for Smoore said:
“This winning litigation demonstrates Smoore’s determination to protect its intellectual property rights in the jurisdiction of the United States.
“It is meaningful for protecting the development of the whole industry toward a healthy direction and providing safe and reliable vaping products for individual customers.”
The lawsuit forms part of a broader anti-counterfeiting programme in the US and elsewhere.
Smoore and its lawyers are co-operating with customs officials and police to seize counterfeit products and close illegal businesses.
Meanwhile, Vaporesso has received an acceptance letter from the FDA following the first round of its PMTA applications.
The Premarket Tobacco product Application system requires companies to prove that their products are beneficial to broader public health and unlikely to attract non-smokers and underage users.
Only products that were on sale before August 8, 2016 can remain on the market while the FDA assesses the new applications.
All products containing nicotine that are “made or derived from tobacco” are regulated by the FDA as tobacco products under the 2016 Deeming Rule, meaning the vast majority of current market is unauthorised.
The FDA has a huge task ahead, with potentially millions of PMTAs to process within a year.
The agency said that it was unlikely to review all the applications in that time since the volume of applications will be “several orders of magnitude greater than anything the Agency has experienced.”
Header Image by Edward Lich from Pixabay
