Edvard, good questions all. I have not understood the nature of ChromaDex's exclusivity for pterostilbene. I can't guess whether the disinterest is simply because Niagen is so much more important, or because pterostilbene is less protected.
Part of the problem with the court system as a dispute resolution mechanism is that it was crafted a long time ago for a different purpose, and it has a really hard time handling the totally different types of litigation that have developed to exploit its weaknesses.
It would be helpful if the legislatures were actively upgrading the rules of civil procedure, but the judicial and legislative branches mostly don't mess with each other. That's why there are still no cameras allowed in most courtrooms -- the courts don't want to be scrutinized, and the legislatures won't intervene (Florida is an exception).
The court system struggled mightily to deal with the sudden arrival of electronic discovery -- discovery documents in electronic format, which was a completely new phenomenon in the 1990's. One judge in one case, Zubulake v. Warburg, worked out the rules that everyone follows. That is a very strange way of developing policy.
So left to their own devices -- and federal district court judges with lifetime tenure are indeed left to their own devices -- many fall into their comfort zone, which is studying very fine points of law, like what is the meaning of "is," and what is meant by "substantially similar," and whether the sale of a trademark can be treated the same as the sale of a tangible product.
While they are fiddling with those questions, Rome burns, because a little common sense, instead of a little legal sense, would tell you that there is some serious misbehavior going on here that needs to end without the victim having to spend millions of dollars to get relief. For victims that don't have millions of dollars, the courthouse doors are effectively closed and there is no justice.
