JUUL Labs, Inc filed a suit against defendant Reeha LLC in the District of Connecticut alleging trademark infringement and unfair trading practices on their vaping products for purportedly selling counterfeit JUUL products, according to lawstreetmedia.
The complaint, filed Dec. 15, states that “wrongdoers have counterfeited JUUL products by illegally manufacturing, selling and distributing fake, copied, and non-genuine versions of JUUL products and related packaging bearing JUUL trademarks.”
Allegedly the defendant did not have JUUL’s “authorization to produce, manufacture, distribute, market, offer for sale, and/or sell merchandise bearing the JUUL marks.” The plaintiff also claims that the defendant hurt the JUUL brand by selling lower quality products to unsuspecting customers who believed these to be true JUUL products.
Reeha allegedly used the trademarked words “JUULpods” in some of their products as well as the plaintiff’s company name “JUUL.”
The Juul contends that Reeha sold “unlawful Grey Market Goods,” which are only meant to be sold in foreign markets because they do not comply with U.S. regulation. According to the complaint, this became more obvious to the plaintiff when it looked at some of these counterfeit products that contained foreign language warnings on them, which are never found on JUUL products legally sold in the United States.
According to the plaintiff, it sent a cease-and-desist letter to the defendant to end the sales of the “unlawful Grey Market Goods,” yet the sales continued after the letter had been sent to the defendant.
The defendant is facing six counts, including trademark infringement – counterfeit goods, false designation of origin, unfair competition, trademark infringement – grey market goods, statutory unfair trade practices and common law unfair competition.