Case Filed: Aug 28, 2012
Case Closed: Feb 07, 2014
Court: California Central
District Court
Judge: S. James Otero
Case Summary:
Tawnsaura filed a patent
infringement complaint against Kingfisher Media, a privately held health and
wellness nutraceutical company. Tawnsaura is a non-practicing entity registered
in Reno, Nevada with a business objective of patent licensing. At the heart of
the litigation are 2 patents and they primarily relate to medicinal use of
L-citrulline with/without other ingredients to act as a nutritional product that
can be used to enhance physical performance.
The patents involved are US5874471
and US6028107 entitled ’Orthomolecular medical use of L-citrulline for
vasoprotection, relaxative smooth muscle tone and cell protection’. The patents were originally issued on Feb 23, 1999
and Feb 22, 2000 to inventor William Howard Waugh and set to expire[i]
by Feb 27, 2017. The patents are currently assigned[ii]
to Tawnsaura (source: MaxVal’s Assignment
Database). After the patent was assigned to Tawnsaura, they began filing
suits alleging infringement of the two patents concerning uses for L-citrulline.
The complaint alleged that the
label and/or advertisements for defendant's product High G and High T state
that the products contain the ingredient
"L-Citrulline and L-8 Citrulline Malate 1: 1" (respectively) and are
"designed to boost the body's output of muscle development”. As per the
complaint, defendant literally infringed the patents-in-suit by manufacturing
and commercializing nutritional supplements embodying the patented invention
and will continue to do so unless enjoined by this Court.
The Court, having considered the
parties’ joint stipulation for dismissal ordered that all claims, counterclaims
and defenses in this action dismissed with prejudice and the parties to bear
their own costs, expenses and attorneys’ fees.
See 8:12-cv-01393 for more
details. To get alerts on cases filed/closed, subscribe to our Litigation
Alerts.
Max-Insight enables you to access all of our patent
tools such as Patent Term Estimator, Patent Family Tree, Has This Patent Been
Litigated, etc. in one location. Max-Insight is available in 4 different
subscriptions: Free, Bronze, Silver and Gold with varying usage levels. To learn
more about Max-Insight, click here.
[i]
Expected expiration date. Patent
Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates
patent terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents
[ii]
MaxVal offers Patent Assignment Alert service
where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating to target
applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded
No comments:
Post a Comment