Tag: RJ Reynolds

Vuse’s Market Share Lead Stays Static in December
Credit: RJR Vapor Co.
The latest Nielsen report shows that the market share of R.J. Reynolds’ top-selling Vuse e-cigarette remained flat at 42 percent in December at convenience stores.
While Vuse’s market share was unchanged, No. 2 Juul dropped from 24.3 percent to 24.2 percent for the report covering the four-week period ending Dec. 30.
As recently as May 2019, Juul held a 74.6 percent share in the U.S. electronic cigarette market. That’s when a series of regulatory actions led to product-reduction concessions, according to media reports.
Meanwhile, Altria Group’s ownership of No. 3 NJoy hasn’t resulted in a meaningful market-share increase so far. Nielsen cited a research error by why it did not include an update for NJoy in the latest report. It was at 2.6 percent in the previous report.
Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs, an affiliate of Imperial Brands Plc, was unchanged at 1.2 percent.
The overall e-cigarette category was down 9.9 percent.
January 11, 2024
Reynolds Warns Vape Shops to Stop Selling Flavored Vapes

Credit: Lovely Day 12
A STAT news report claims R.J. Reynolds has sent letters to several small vape shops threatening to sue if the shops do not stop selling flavored vaping products.
The STAT news story claims to have obtained two letters, both of which were sent in March, giving the vape shops just a few days to confirm they will no longer sell flavored tobacco products.
Failure to comply could result in “legal action, and the costs, attorneys’ fees, and adverse publicity to which a lawsuit would subject [the vape shop],” the letters warn, according to STAT.
The letters, which were sent to stores in New Jersey and Alabama, also warn that the shops are violating local laws regulating the sale of flavored tobacco.
The New Jersey letter also copies the county prosecutor where the vape shop is located, in an apparent attempt to notify the local authorities of the violation.
he letters are the latest example — and a marked escalation — of Reynolds’ campaign to force a crackdown on illegal vaping products.
In the article, Clive Bates, a tobacco harm reduction advocate, criticized Reynolds.
“I do not think Reynolds should be hounding vape shops for selling life-saving products to their regular customers,” Bates wrote in an email to STAT. “It should not be picking on little guys, but pressing federal bureaucracies to do their job, and do it better.”
In February, RAI Services Company, a Reynolds company, submitted a citizen petition asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to adopt a new enforcement policy directed at flavored “illegally marketed disposable electronic nicotine delivery system” (ENDS) products.
The petition was filed on Feb. 6 and posted by the FDA to Regulations.gov for public comment on Feb. 8.
May 3, 2023
Top Court Declines to Hear LA County Flavor Ban Appeal

Image: Tobacco Reporter archive
The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 27 declined to hear an appeal by three Reynolds American Inc. subsidiaries seeking to overturn the county of Los Angeles ban on flavored tobacco products, reports Law360.
R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., American Snuff Co. and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. had petitioned the high court in October to take another look at the case after the full 9th Circuit upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the suit.
The RAI companies said the 9th Circuit had twice before erred in allowing sales bans at the state and local level that were preempted by federal law.
While the federal Tobacco Control Act grants state and local municipalities broad authority to regulate the sale of tobacco products, it does not allow them to completely prohibit the sale of those products for failing to meet state or local tobacco product standards, the companies argued.
In dismissing their initial suit, District Judge Dale S. Fischer in 2021 found that the ban doesn’t regulate tobacco product standards. The judge said the ordinance is protected by the federal law’s preservation clause, which allows states and localities to prohibit the sale of tobacco products even if those bans are stricter than federal law.
The companies appealed, calling the ban unconstitutional and saying state and local governments can’t bar the sale of tobacco products because they disagree with federal tobacco standards.
L.A. County countered that the ban doesn’t pose an obstacle to federal policy since the FDA announced it intends to ban menthol cigarettes and all flavored cigars.
February 28, 2023
Judge Boosts Philip Morris’ IQOS Infringement Award

Photo: New Africa
R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. owes Philip Morris Products more than $14 million after a federal judge on Aug. 17 increased a jury’s June patent-infringement award over vapor products to include prejudgment interest and supplemental damages, reports Bloomberg Law.
Judge Leonie M. Brinkema amended the judgment entered June 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to reflect a total judgment amount of $10.9 million for infringement of one patent and $3.16 million for infringement of another.
In its June 15 judgement, the jury found that RJR’s Vuse Solo and Alto devices infringe two Philip Morris patents covering parts of a vaping device for heating substances and preventing leaks. At the same time, the jury cleared Vuse Alto of infringing one of the patents.
The verdict concerned counterclaims in RJR’s ongoing patent lawsuit over PMI’s IQOS heated-tobacco device. RJR won an order blocking IQOS imports at the U.S. International Trade Commission last November.
Philip Morris succeeded earlier this year in invalidating parts of some patents RJR accused it of infringing at a U.S. Patent Office tribunal.
RJR parent company BAT has also sued Philip Morris over IQOS in the United Kingdom, Germany and elsewhere. A PMI filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year said IQOS patent lawsuits and challenges outside of the U.S. have “repeatedly and universally failed.”
Altria has separately sued Reynolds for patent infringement in North Carolina over the Vuse line.
August 21, 2022