Procter & Gamble has filed a lawsuit in the US District Court of Southern Ohio, accusing Michigan-based Ranir of infringing its intellectual property, according to various reports.

P&G has accused the contract manufacturer of fleecing its technology for Crest tooth whitening strips in a ‘flagrant act of piracy’, and selling its own-brand copycat products via Walmart, Kroger and other retailers.

In the suit, the FMCG behemoth described Ranir as, “the most recent private label supplier in a long line that have tried to ride on the coattails of P&G’s success by selling tooth-whitening strips that infringe P&G’s patented technology.”

Indeed, this is the fourth such lawsuit issued by P&G over its Whitestrips since 2012, and the second time the US manufacturer of Gillette has been involved in a spat with Ranir over this self-same technology.