BPI Sports, LLC, a leading sports nutrition company, is suing Thermolife International, LLC, claiming the company and its president and CEO, Ronald Kramer, “have each participated in, directed, controlled, and/or caused fraudulent representations to the United States Patent and Trademark Office” regarding the ingredient “Creatine Nitrate.”
According to the suit, BPI claims that Thermolife has made false claims about creatine nitrate’s usefulness over creatine, which they claim are designed to hurt BPI’s own creatine sales. BPI’s “Best Creatine” product lists “creatine monohydrate” as its main ingredient, while “creatine nitrate” is an ingredient patented by Thermolife. According to Thermolife, creatine nitrate is a form of creatine that’s bonded to a nitrate and is “intended to increase vasodilation by way of augmenting nitric oxide production.” Other claims by the company include creatine nitrate’s ability to improve “vasodilation as compared with Creatine” and provide “better circulation and distribution of the Creatine amino acid in the body.”
However, according to the suit, “no reliable scientific studies have shown that ingesting Creatine Nitrate will cause any measurable increase in the subject’s nitric oxide levels.”
The suit, which was commenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District Of Florida on February 26, also cites a study to back up BPI’s claim. This study stated that subjects given creatine monohydrate showed better performance improvements over the placebo group than the subjects given creatine nitrate.
