Erik
08-21-2009, 01:58 PM
Oprah Winfrey has filed a federal trademark infringement suit against 40 dietary supplement companies! Winfrey’s show features segments about foods or products that can lead to better health, and they often include appearances by Dr. Mehmet Oz. Last year, Oz praised the anti-aging properties of the acai berry. Not long after, Internet marketers began to sell acai products with implications that they had been endorsed by Winfrey or Oz. But neither has ever sponsored such a product! The same phenomenon has occurred involving the health benefits of other substances aside from acai berries. The subject is discussed on the show, then the scams start. But acai berries have been a particular magnet for alleged misdeeds. Winfrey’s Web site has fielded more than 2,000 complaints related to acai-berry-related products. Some involve viewers who mistakenly believed that a product was actually endorsed by Oz or Winfrey; others are from consumers who felt they’d been defrauded. Many of those consumer fraud complaints were then provided by Harpo to the Illinois attorney general. Winfrey’s company filed suit against Advanced Wellness Research and its successor Netalab, alleging that they offer a “free trial” of their dietary supplements, only to hook unaware consumers into an agreement to buy monthly supplies of the product.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune