Kramer Levin Successfully Represents Johnson & Johnson Vision Care in Challenge Before the National Advertising Division

Kramer Levin successfully represented its client, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., in a challenge before the National Advertising Division (“NAD”) against competing contact lens manufacturer, Alcon Laboratories, Inc. (“Alcon”).  Alcon widely disseminated disparaging and comparative advertising falsely touting that its Air Optix Aqua contact lenses had superior surface deposit resistance to Johnson & Johnson’s Acuvue OASYS lenses.  In a strongly worded decision, NAD recommended that Alcon’s advertising be discontinued, holding that “the evidence was insufficient to provide a reasonable basis for the advertiser’s comparative superiority claims that Air Optix Aqua lenses provide ‘superior surface deposit resistance.’”  NAD also concluded that certain enhanced images in Alcon’s advertising that purported to show the respective lens surfaces lenses “unfairly distort[ed] the supposed amount of lipid deposition found on the lenses” and thus likewise should be discontinued.  Finally, NAD also found that Alcon’s general superiority claims of better comfort and vision were unsupported and likewise  should be discontinued.  The Kramer Levin team included litigation partner Norman C. Simon and associate Jason M. Moff.