I've asked this question on this forum twice, but got no answer. Not a holder so didn't bother asking the company.
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Found Google entry August 2016 “ Blis product 12 and 18 patents expire between 2020 and 2023”
A good question to ask at the AGM..
I just purchased a "fresh breath kit" and realised 2 things.
1. The fresh breath kit has been amazing for treating the chronic bad breath I use to suffer from for years. It is funny as I forgot how much of an massive issue it use to be for me, but not any more. In fact I have purchased this kit for a friend of mine as I am confident it will help them.
2. The web page is really good and easy to use. It is a huge improvement from the previous one.
I don't know a lot about patents but it looks like it can be renewed - https://www.iponz.govt.nz/about-ip/patents/renewal/
Seems to be known as a maintenance or renewal fee up to a maximum of 20 years
Someone else with knowledge might be able to shed some light - Is it a universal rule?
I wouldn't worry about the patents.
There isn't much money in the raw ingredients unlike many expensive drugs that get copied and sold as something else. We are talking parts of a cent per lozenge for the ingredients versus tens or hundreds of dollars for some drugs per pill.
The level of IP around the manufacturing shouldn't be underestimated. To produce the ingredients and or turn it into a finished consumer product isn't a simple business and the economics of trying to recreate what Blis have done won't pay off unless the copier could sell a lot of the product. Given how long Blis has taken to scale up to their current rather insignificant level lets not kid ourselves here. There are bigger fish to fry for now, and possibly for many many years to come.
If someone does duplicate K12 how are they going to market it and to whom? They can't use K12 or Blis K12 or anything else that has been trade marked. So they have to start from scratch. They have to build a market. Long term holders and watches know how slow that process is.
While it would be comforting to know the patents run another 50 years I don't think it is a real world problem.