Per last filing, they had $1.3 million in bank, bringing bottling in house first quarter of 2019. Should bring costs down immensely, we're talking about 1 of its kind patent here.
An important element of our business is the License we have been provided by VDF FutureCeuticals, Inc. (“VDF”), which provides us with the use of VDF’s coffee fruit patents and Coffeeberry ® trademark license. A License Agreement has effectively formed a strategic alliance between KonaRed and VDF.
We developed the necessary processing and manufacturing intellectual property (“IP”) for processing and manufacturing our base ingredient - the coffee fruit (and have subsequently coordinated this with the IP provided by VDF). The License Agreement provides us with access to use of VDF’s patents, as existing and/or modified in the future, along with the processes, products, methods, compositions and know-how developed by VDF related to the patented Coffee Cherry related inventions, trade secrets and know-how.
Trademarks
We use several trademarks in branding our business:
KonaRed Hand Crafted with Aloha Paradise in a Bottle Paradise in a Can Nature’s Best Kept Secret Best Coffee on Earth CoffeeBerry
The first three of these are our registered trademarks. In addition, we have rights to the registered CoffeeBerry® trademark.
Intellectual Property
KonaRed ® is a registered trademark in the United States, Japan and China and we intend to seek a number of trademarks for slogans and product designs. We also hold trademark rights to the Paradise in a Bottle ® ”, “Nature’s Best Kept Secret™”, “Hand Crafted with Aloha ® ”, “Paradise in a Can™”, and “Best Coffee on Earth™” tag lines; and rights to a suite of international CoffeeBerry ® trademarks provided under our License with VDF. We believe we have the rights to use the necessary processing and manufacturing intellectual property relating to processing and manufacturing our base ingredient (the coffee fruit) and our proprietary beverage formulas. However, we do not own the manufacturing process for making the finished beverages. We intend to aggressively assert our rights under trade secret, unfair competition, trademark and copyright laws to protect our intellectual property, including product design, product research and concepts and recognized trademarks. These rights are protected through the acquisition of patent rights and trademark registrations, the maintenance of trade secrets, the development of trade dress, and, where appropriate, litigation against those who are, in our opinion, infringing these rights.
While there can be no assurance that registered trademarks will protect our proprietary information, we intend to assert our intellectual property rights against any infringer. Although any assertion of our rights could result in a substantial cost to, and diversion of effort by, our Company, management believes that the protection of our intellectual property rights will be a key component of our operating strategy.
Partnership Initiative with VDF FutureCeuticals Inc.
In 2014 KonaRed settled a patent dispute with VDF by forming a partnership with them.
VDF is a leader in the bio-research, development, and manufacture of high-quality fruit, vegetable, and grain-based nutraceutical and functional food ingredients. VDF is committed to discovery-based research that leads to the expansion of human health, and is the trusted partner-of-choice for companies in search of creative, ethical solutions for the health and wellness needs of today’s consumer. Its sister company, Van Drunen Farms, was founded over one hundred years ago and has grown into one of the largest dried food ingredient manufacturers and suppliers in the world.
VDF is a major biotech and ingredient supplier and owner of the patent-protected CoffeeBerry ® coffee fruit technology, a proprietary set of agricultural and industrial processes and a line of unique ingredients. VDF’s patents and processes capture the same potent nutrition inherent in coffee fruit which had formed the basis of two provisional patent applications made by KonaRed based on KonaRed’s own proprietary research and development.
The partnership brings together the flavor profile of KonaRed’s beverages and the ingenuity, innovation, and ongoing chemistry and clinical research of VDF’s globally integrated CoffeeBerry® coffee fruit ingredient platform.
