After losing the first round in a legal trade battle with British American Tobacco Plc., PMI now faces an import ban of its IQOS heated tobacco sticks in the US, reports Bloomberg.

International Trade Commission Judge Clark Cheney said that Philip Morris’ IQOS device, which is sold by Altria Group Inc. in the US, infringes two patents owned by BAT’s subsidiary Reynolds American Inc. Reynolds had claimed that Philip Morris infringed three patents, two for an electrically-powered device with a heater to generate an aerosol and one for a control body.
While the judge’s findings are not yet public, the next step will likely be a review by the full commission according to Bloomberg. This could then result in products being stopped at the US border.
Philip Morris’s IQOS device is the only heat-not-burn product authorized for sale in the US and last year received the US Food and Drug Administration’s go ahead to be marketed as a reduced harm product.
According to Bloomberg, Reynolds expects the judge will recommend an import ban and has argued that Philip Morris is both overstating the benefits and the popularity of its IQOS product, stating that there are “literally thousands” of alternatives. Philip Morris, on the other hand, called the judge’s findings “one step in a long process that does not have an immediate effect”. The company also argued that even if a patent violation were found it would not be in the public’s interest to stop IQOS imports to the US.