The L'Oréal Group, is the world's largest cosmetics and Beauty Company. Concentrating on hair color, skin care, sun protection, make-up, perfumes and hair care, the company is active in the dermatological and pharmaceutical fields and is the largest nanotechnology patent-holder in the United States.
L’oreal has about eighty Indian equivalents of Patents filed according to the data from the Indian IP Database. The above graph shows how many patents it has filed for in India in the last couple of decades. While the Patent filing has gone up significantly post 2005, highest of about twenty-eight in the year of 2008, the Company has also immersed itself in Patent wars with other Cosmetic giants over Patent infringement issues.
Recently it has sued Coppertone(Merck & Co.,) and Neutrogena(Johnson & Johnson), in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, on Jan. 27, 2012, claiming their sunscreens use its patented ingredients.
L’Oreal believes such acts of infringement are clear case ways to defame and deter their Brand image at International level. The company claims patent to a mixture of compounds that help stabilize its sunscreen which appears in so- called avobenzone sunscreens and uses the compound octocrylene, according to filed records.
The company fervently hopes damage control falls in place ruling that the patents are infringed and an order to stop further use its inventions.
Disclaimer: The data provided is based on the search performed on some patent databases including Indian patent office's database by using specific search queries and may not be complete due to limitations in extent of data or search query.
Author: Valli Shobhana. C
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