Emerging from shadows, pot industry tries to build brands
Health
Emerging from shadows, pot industry tries to build brands
As the fast-growing marijuana industry emerges from the black market and starts looking like a mainstream industry, there’s a scramble to brand and trademark pot products. Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson already have their own lines of marijuana. Problem is, those weed brands aren’t much more substantial than the labels they’re printed on. Patents and trademarks are largely regulated by the federal government, which considers marijuana an illegal drug and therefore ineligible for any sort of legal protection. The result is a Wild West environment of marijuana entrepreneurs trying to stake claims and establish cross-state markets using a patchwork of state laws.
You can’t go into federal court to get federal benefits if you’re a drug dealer.
Sam Kamin, a University of Denver law professor who tracks marijuana law
But that doesn’t mean the pot business isn’t trying. Hundreds of marijuana-related patents have likely been requested from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to those who work in the industry. So far, federal authorities have either ignored or rejected marijuana patent and trademark requests. Some companies are betting that if marijuana becomes legal nationally, they will be first in line to claim legal ownership of whichever type of marijuana they have already developed. But others are filing state-level trademarks, thereby avoiding the snag in a federal trademark application: the requirement that the mark be used in interstate commerce, which remains off-limits for pot companies.
We’re in a new industry, where the benefits of federal protection aren’t open to us.
John Lord, CEO of LivWell, a 10-store chain of Colorado marijuana shops that recently entered an agreement to sell Leafs by Snoop
