On January 11, the USPTO (US Patent and Trademark Office) issued an office action rejecting all claims of all three VDF patents at issue in the VDF vs KonaRed litigation. Previously, on December 27, the US District Court for the District of Hawaii issued an order staying proceedings and administratively closing the case, pending the decision of the USPTO.
The USPTO Examiner accepted KonaRed patent attorney’s suggestion that all VDF claims be rejected on the basis of novelty, and also accepted the suggestion to reject those claims, in the alternative, on the basis of obviousness.
The USPTO examiners appear to view many aspects of the VDF claims as obvious and well known in the art. VDF will have to overcome both novelty and obviousness rejections to avoid invalidation of their claims.
Steven Schorr, co-founder of KonaRed, said: “The irony in this lawsuit is that KonaRed was never infringing upon the alleged patents of VDF. However, VDF never bothered to inquire as to this issue, instead they used patent litigation as a means of inhibiting competition as their business strategy.”
Company co-founder and CEO, Shaun Roberts, added: “We have always competed fairly in the marketplace based on a superior product, innovation and aggressive sales and marketing of our products, including our flagship product the KonaRed Hawaiian superfruit antioxidant beverage.”
The company said KonaRed will continue to defend itself aggressively and invites all customers who were concerned about the litigation to contact them. Roberts added: “KonaRed is the best superfruit antioxidant on the market, with the highest ORAC and bio-availability available, and with the tremendous marketability of the Kona, Hawaii region.”
Source: KonaRed
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