Thought I'd comment here....
From what I understand, the 20,000 number came from some PM/Altria arbitrary document. I believe this number has never been challenged, verified or defined (what exactly is a user) in court or anywhere. Until that happens, I wouldn't believe a word they spew.
Over the years, it is a fact that PM/Altria and its lawyers have been proven to be untruthful and flat out liars. Facts are there are 330M+ people in the US, 30M+ smokers/vapers in the US. Over the last few years, PM/Altria have doled out $13B for a 35% stake in JUUL and another $7B to roll out vaping in the US. Does anyone believe PM/Altria will just walk away for a $20B investment in the vaping market?
BAT/Reynolds just settled a lawsuit with FUMA (a small company and what I consider a shell company compared to HCMC). Details are not available right now, but FUMA's lawsuit was asking for $135M and licensing agreement. Look it up.
IMO, both PM/Atria and BAT/Reynolds, in a pre-meditated manner, blatantly robbed the existing patents available worldwide at the time. They were simply following the Chinese model/motto to rob, replicate, and replace with no regard for existing IP.
If HCMC's patent suite is as strong as we think it is (non-combustion vs partial combustion), it seems to me they should take their lessons learned and immediately file suit against BAT/Reynolds and FUMA (now that FUMA has something to go after). Then take on PM/Altria when the time is right later on.
Also note, VPRB (what I would call a HCMC sister company) has just won a small lawsuit (250K and licensing) related to their vape suite of patents. More importantly they have 10+ much larger lawsuits in the hopper right now. Look it up.
Could it be that VPRB is going after the small fish and HCMC is going after the big fish. Could it be that when the time is right, maybe these companies will come back together and corner the US market. What do you think?