A wi-fi enabled juicer that has become a symbol of Silicon Valley excess has been called a “$400 paperweight” in the latest round of an increasingly bitter and entertaining legal battle.
Juicero invited ridicule last year when its cold-press juicer — which squeezes pouches rather than fruit and vegetables — went on sale for $700 (£540). The price dropped to $400 in January.
The company, started by Doug Evans, a vegan former paratrooper, had raised an astonishing $120m from blue-chip backers such as venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Google Ventures to create a subscription-based juice business. Its sleek machine only works with special bags of fruit bought from Juicero.
In April, it filed a patent infringement lawsuit against a Chinese rival with a strikingly similar device. Shanghai-based Juisir, run by Leo Chen, a graduate of Royal Holloway, University of London, dismissed the allegations.
Last week, Chen filed a countersuit in a district court in San Jose, California, calling Juicero’s claims “baseless”. The suit said his machine uses recyclable bags packed with whatever a customer wants, as opposed to the pre-packed bags Juicero requires.
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Juisir said: “If a user does not buy the expensive, proprietary Juicero juice bags, the Juicero machine is nothing more than a $400 paperweight.”