Recently, in an arbitration in the Federal District Court of the Central District of California, the arbitrator ruled that the American beverage manufacturer vital pharmaceuticals, Inc. (VPX sports or VPX for short) should pay US $175 million in compensation to the two infringing beverage manufacturers. This is one of the trademark infringement cases with the highest amount of compensation in the history of the United States.

The two infringing American beverage companies are the famous Monster Energy Co. and orange bang, Inc., both headquartered in Southern California. Claw energy drink is the second largest energy drink sold in the United States, second only to red bull. Bang energy, an energy drink produced by VPX sports, headquartered in Florida, ranked third.

On April 6, at the request of Talon energy, the arbitration tribunal published 177 pages of arbitration results to confirm the amount of compensation. The ruling showed that VPX sports violated the settlement agreement reached with orange bang in 2010 and used the name "bang" outside the agreed scope. The arbitrator ordered VPX to stop using the name bang in 12 states of the United States. The 12 states include California, New York and Texas. The arbitrator also ordered that in the future, VPX can only sell energy drinks with bang as the brand in the vitamin product areas in gyms and grocery stores, otherwise it needs to pay 5% of the sales to magic claw energy and orange bang as an authorized royalty. He also awarded the two infringed companies more than $9 million in lawyer fees and necessary expenses.

In 2009, orange Bang sued VPX, saying that the energy drink Bang energy it sold at that time would confuse consumers. In the advertisement, bang energy has always been positioned as a Pre Workout drink. The next year, the two companies reached a settlement, and VPX was able to continue to use the name Bang to sell its "creatine based" drinks, and the sales scope of these drinks was limited to the "vitamins and dietary supplements" product areas in vitamin stores, gyms, fitness clubs or grocery stores. In 2015, VPX launched a new product Bang energy RTD, which was promoted as an energy drink containing "super creatine".

In 2019, orange bang and Talon energy jointly accused VPX of violating the 2010 settlement agreement and infringing orange Bang's trademark and applied for arbitration. Talon energy has filed a separate lawsuit against the false advertisement of VPX's "super creatine", which is still under trial. In 2020, VPX also filed a lawsuit against Talon energy and orange bang. In the complaint, VPX accused claw energy of inducing orange Bang to initiate an arbitration request, and regarded the settlement agreement between VPX and orange bang as a "weapon". VPX asked the court to find that it did not infringe the trademark rights of orange bang.

As mentioned earlier, on April 4, the arbitrator Bruce Isaacs issued an award. Isaacs said that VPX violated the settlement agreement and the trademark of orange bang, and determined that bang energy RTD was not a "creatine based" beverage because "super creatine" was not real creatine and would not improve the level of creatine in the human body.

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