Philip Morris International’ (PMI) IQOS devices are facing the possibility of having its import to the US blocked as early as this November due to a legal battle with British American Tobacco’s (BAT) subsidiary, Reynolds American.
Reynolds is seeking to block IQOS imports, alleging that the technology used in the devices infringed its patents. The judge for the trial at the US International Trade Commission (ITC) is scheduled to release his findings in May.
IQOS is currently the only heat-not-burn product marketed as reducing consumers’ exposure to harmful chemicals in cigarettes to be authorized for sale in the US.
Reynolds filed a case in federal court in Virginia last April along with the complaint at the ITC, claiming that Philip Morris and Altria copied patented technology that it had developed for its Vuse Vibe and Vuse Solo vaping products.
Altria responded with its own patent-infringement claims in the Virginia case, and a separate suit against Reynolds a month later, as well as lodging petitions with the US Patent and Trademark Office challenging the validity of a half-dozen Reynolds’ patents, including the three in the ITC case.
In the ITC case, the trade agency, which acts as a third party to the case on behalf of the public, has come out in support of Reynolds. ITC staff lawyer, Sarah Sladic, recommended in opening arguments that the judge find that Altria infringed two patents for a smoking article with a heater that creates an aerosol, but that there was no violation of a third patent, for the control body.
According to Sladic, ITC rarely opts against an import ban after finding a violation, and this isn’t the case to make an exception. ITC is scheduled to issue a final decision by September and the ban, if ordered then, would take effect in November this year.