FutureCeuticals Files Suit Against KonaRed

MOMENCE, Ill.VDF FutureCeuticals Inc. filed a suit against Sandwich Isles Trading Co., maker of the KonaRed line of coffee fruit products, for infringement of patents related to coffee fruit production methods and technologies marketed by FutureCeuticals under the registered trade name CoffeeBerry®. The company said its mission is protect patent rights for its clients and partners that market individual products and whole product lines with its exclusive technologies, according to FutureCeuticals' general manager John M. Hunter.

Sandwich Isles Trading Co. Inc. (dba KonaRed) said it filed a response on June 14, 2011, denying the claims in the patent infringement lawsuit.  The response asserts that KonaReds ingredients are made from the deseeded fruit of Hawaii-grown coffee plants and do not infringe on VDFs patents.  Steven Schorr, KonaRed chief scientific officer and co-founder, KonaRed said, The differences between the materials are night and day.  Our product is a thick dark red liquid extract made from red ripe fruit and contains no coffee beans, while the VDF patent is based on extracting a sub-ripe whole fruit. Their resultant product is a mustard yellow powder with characteristics that do not match the KonaRed product. 

FutureCeuticals said if filed the suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii to protect novel, patented technology of coffee fruit cultivation, harvest and processing.   

KonaRed also filed a counterclaim against FutureCeuticals, asserting that two of the patents relied upon by VDF are invalid, and that VDFs COFFEEBERRY trademark registrations for coffee berry goods are invalid because coffee berry is a generic or descriptive term for the fruit of coffee plants used by the coffee industry for hundreds of years.

Hunter added in addition to the pending lawsuit against the makers of the KonaRed products, VDF FutureCeuticals has sent and will continue to send out cease-and-desist letters to various other companies selling coffee fruit products that infringe VDF FutureCeutical's already issued or pending patent applications.

Today, CoffeeBerry Whole Coffee Fruit products and processes are covered by one or more of the following issued US patents: US 6,572,915, US 7,754,263, US 7,807,205, US 7,815,959, and US 7,959,957, as well as a number of pending US and foreign applications.

 "As a large-scale food and nutritional supplement manufacturer, and as an industry research and development leader with many issued patents for nutraceutical, functional foods, and beverage technologies, FutureCeuticals takes great pride in the potential contributions to human nutrition embodied in our stable of intellectual property, Hunter said. The technologies embodied in the CoffeeBerry brand perhaps represent the most remarkable and formidable of our various contributions to date.

CoffeeBerry Brand Coffee Fruit products are self-affirmed GRAS, kosher certified, non-GMO, and available as USDA Organic-Certified.