Fontem Ventures, the Imperial Tobacco subsidiary that holds patents obtained from e-cigarette inventor Hon Lik, reached an out-of-court settlement with two distributors over patent infringements, the company said.

CB Distributors and DR Distributors were granted non-exclusive royalty bearing licences by Fontem, which agreed to drop the suit, which was one of eight filed in the US against e-cigarette companies. A similar settlement with NJoy, the largest independent vaping company in the US, was announced earlier in November. Terms of the settlements are confidential, Fontem said.