NJOY v. ITC — Court Rejects Constitutional Challenge to ITC Patent Authority, Allows Juul Vaping Case to Proceed

Background

Juul Labs Inc. initiated an International Trade Commission investigation against NJOY (a subsidiary of Altria Group) alleging that NJOY’s vaping devices infringe Juul’s nicotine-salt formulation and device patents. After the ITC issued a final determination in January 2025 finding infringement, Altria and NJOY escalated their challenge: they sued the ITC in Virginia federal court, arguing that the entire ITC patent adjudication framework is unconstitutional because ITC administrative law judges are not properly appointed under the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Altria and NJOY moved for a preliminary injunction to pause the ITC’s enforcement pending resolution of their constitutional claims — effectively asking the court to freeze the ITC’s patent investigation while they litigated the structural validity of the tribunal itself.

The Court’s Holding

Judge Robert E. Payne denied the motion for a preliminary injunction on June 11, 2026. The court concluded that Altria and NJOY were “unlikely to succeed” on their Appointments Clause arguments. Under the traditional preliminary injunction standard, likelihood of success on the merits is a threshold requirement. The court found the constitutional attack on ITC ALJ appointments insufficient to meet that bar at this stage, allowing the underlying ITC investigation — and its exclusion order findings — to continue in force.

The ruling does not end the constitutional litigation; Altria and NJOY may continue to litigate their Appointments Clause theory through final judgment and appeal. But it confirms that federal courts are unwilling to pause ITC enforcement based on the same constitutional theories that have had limited traction in other circuits.

Key Takeaways

• Appointments Clause challenges to ITC administrative law judges remain a high bar — courts evaluating preliminary injunctions require a strong showing of likely success on the constitutional merits, and courts have consistently been skeptical of these arguments.
• Companies facing unfavorable ITC determinations cannot routinely obtain a stay of enforcement by filing a collateral constitutional lawsuit in district court; they must demonstrate a probability of prevailing on the constitutional theory itself.
• The vaping patent landscape remains active: Juul Labs, despite its commercial decline, has maintained a robust patent portfolio and continues to enforce it through the ITC against NJOY and other competitors.
• The case is a reminder that ITC proceedings — which can result in import exclusion orders and cease-and-desist orders — operate on a parallel track from district court patent litigation, with different procedural rules and faster timelines.

Why It Matters

The Appointments Clause has become a popular vehicle for challenging the validity of administrative patent adjudications — both at the ITC and at the PTAB. A successful challenge could call into question thousands of prior ITC and PTAB decisions. The fact that courts consistently deny these challenges at the preliminary injunction stage signals that the constitutional argument has not yet found traction in the lower courts, though the issue has not been definitively resolved at the Supreme Court level. For companies subject to ITC investigations, this ruling underscores that challenging the constitutionality of the ITC’s structure is unlikely to provide a short-term escape from exclusion order exposure.