Wrigley sues e-cigarette seller over ‘juicy fruit’ mark amid FDA crackdown
Chewing gum company Wrigley has sued the owner of a company selling liquids for electronic cigarettes over the use of the ‘Juicy fruit’ trademark.
Wrigley said that the complaint, filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Friday, September 8, was submitted after the defendants failed to reply to two cease-and-desist letters from Wrigley.
Mohammed Ibrahim Ghatala allegedly owns ‘Dreamecore Enterprise’, a company which runs the vapefab.com website and sells a range of e-cigarettes products containing the ‘Juicy fruit’ trademark.
Wrigley also commented on the “growing concern, shared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Senate, that the marketing of e-cigarette materials in chocolate, fruit and/or candy flavours harmfully targets children under 18 years of age”.
The chewing gum company claimed that the defendants’ “unauthorised and infringing use of Wrigley’s ‘Juicy fruit’ trademark is likely to cause confusion and harm to the public”.
Wrigley owns several US trademark registrations for its ‘Juicy fruit’ mark, including US numbers 105,032, 619,549 and 2,836,550, according to the suit.
Ghatala could face injunctive action and a recall of the allegedly infringing products.
In August last year, the FDA finalised plans to regulate all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes. The agency said that this would enable it to protect children from the dangers posed by all tobacco products.
In July last year, Wrigley sued Chi-Town Vapers, claiming that the e-cigarette seller had infringed its IP covering the Doublemint and Juicy Fruit brands of gum.
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