Brita class action alleges monopoly on home water-filtration systems

Brita water filtration class action overview: 

• Who: Water filter startup Zero Technologies is suing Clorox and Brita.
• Why: The company says Clorox used its involvement in national standard-setting organizations to develop and file an early patent application for Brita water filters and create a monopoly.
• Where: The Brita water filtration lawsuit was filed in a Pennsylvania federal court.

Clorox used its involvement in national standard-setting organizations to develop and file an early patent application and create a monopoly for its Brita water filter, a rival startup alleges in a new lawsuit.

Water filtration startup Zero Technologies LLC filed the anti-competition lawsuit against Brita LP and The Clorox Co. Oct. 6 in a Pennsylvania federal court, alleging violations of federal antitrust laws. 

According to the lawsuit, Clorox — which makes the Brita water filter — used its involvement in the industry’s standard-setting organizations to secretly plan and execute a “patent ambush” for water filters, using information gathered through the standards bodies.

The lawsuit alleges that the Brita patent licensing conspiracy dates back to 2007.

It was then that the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF International) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) issued guidelines for what kind of health standards would be required for water filter makers to receive certifications, the lawsuit says. 

Brita used industry standards info to file patent, lawsuit alleges

Brita allegedly participated in the guidelines process and then used that knowledge to “develop a patent essential to the standard and lay its plan for a patent ‘ambush’ of the industry after over a decade of ongoing deception,” the lawsuit claims.

Brita allegedly did not advise the standard-setting organizations that it was going to file a patent. When the patent was registered, it had been deliberately written out “to be required for products to meet the NSF/ANSI [American National Standards Institute] … standard,” Zero says.

“Simply put, had NSF or ANSI known about Brita’s patent rights and intentions, and this information been made available to the public as required, NSF would not have adopted the standard in the form that it did.”

Brita has used the patent to try to get Zero’s water filters blocked from the market, the company alleges.

Zero claims that Brita is using the patent to “unlawfully [exclude] competing technologies from the relevant market and unlawfully [acquire] monopoly power in that market.”

It is seeking an injunction forcing the standards groups to write out the standards in a way that complies with antitrust laws and “preliminarily and permanently [enjoin] Brita from any further exclusionary, predatory or anticompetitive acts.”

In June, business intelligence company Morning Consult unveiled its list of the most trusted brands of 2022 in the United States and abroad. Among them: Clorox, Band-Aid, Lysol, UPS, Visa, The Home Depot, and Colgate, among others, according to the report.

What do you think about the monopoly claims against Clorox in this case? Let us know in the comments! 

Zero is represented by Carl W. Hittinger, Julian D. Perlman and Alyse F. Stach of Baker & Hostetler LLP.

The Clorox water filter class action lawsuit is Zero Technologies LLC v. The Clorox Company et al., Case No. 2:22-cv-03989, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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