Carolwood Corporation, which who this week had its exclusive licence for MSM revoked, has said that it intends to continue manufacturing and selling the nutritional supplement.
Carolwood is the exclusive supplier of Lignisul MSM, a supplement that provides biologically-active sulphur for arthritis, muscle and joint pain.
The company received a notice of termination from MSM Investments (MIC) to end the settlement agreement, including the licence related to MIC's MSM patents, after MIC claimed that Carolwood had failed to pay royalties to the product's creator. But the Philadelphia-based company is determined to continue supplying the ingredient.
"We want to assure our good customers they will continue to have an adequate supply of high-quality, ultrapure Lignisul MSM from Carolwood, and get the same personalised service and marketing support to which they are accustomed," said founder and president Rex Bailey.
MIC and Carolwood started the litigation over alleged patent infringement almost four years ago. The human use patents at issue in those lawsuits have either expired or have been invalidated by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, whose decision was affirmed by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
Carolwood also had a motion pending to invalidate the two animal use patents at issue in one of those earlier lawsuits before the parties entered into the Settlement Agreement.
Carolwood said it firmly believed that the motion would have been successful.
"In addition, we believe that MIC has not effectively enforced the patents, allowing unlicensed, offshore products to enter the North American market," said Bailey.