Red Bull's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Vital Pharmaceuticals last October, demanding that it stop using the Redline name and color scheme on its energy drink, claiming they were
"confusingly similar" to the market leader's. The following week, Vital sued Red Bull in Miami federal court seeking a judgment that it wasn't infringing on Red Bull's trademark. Now, each side is
charging that the other's drink doesn't live up to claims touted on the packaging. Red Bull calls Redline's fat-burning boasts bogus, referring to a trademarked rhyme on Redline's bottles that reads,
"Feel the Freak / Feel the Freeze / Watch the Fat Drop / Off with Ease!" Vital says Red Bull's assertions that its drink "improves performance" and "reaction speed" and "increases endurance" and
"concentration" are unsupported. The legal dispute turns a spotlight on whether popular energy drinks--which accounted for $3.5 billion of the $68 billion in carbonated soft-drink sales last
year--deliver what they promise. It also raises questions about how such claims are regulated. Last week, a U.S. district judge granted Vital the right to pursue its false-advertising claims against
Red Bull, as well as its contention that Red Bull is a nutritional supplement subject to Food and Drug Administration regulations.
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