Can You Trademark Your Pot?
from the whoa dept
Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman, continuing their excellent blogging (soon to be in book form) about markets succeeding in absence of intellectual property, have taken a look at the question of whether or not different brands of marijuana can be covered by trademark. With the increasing legality of medical marijuana, it's not uncommon for different strands to get their own brands. However, as the two note, plant varieties cannot be trademarked, but you can build a brand on top of one. So, as an example, Fuji apples cannot be trademarked, because that's a variety -- but Rainier Brand Fuji Apples is a trademark.Of course, if you were dealing with a pot brand rather than a variety, could you trademark it? Well, you don't need to register a trademark to get protections. There are common law trademarks which get you pretty far without registering -- though it doesn't appear that anyone's tested such a pot trademark in court. As for a registered trademark, the USPTO apparently created a medical marijuana category for trademarks... very, very briefly. And then someone apparently realized this might be a political nightmare and that category suddenly disappeared.
Amusingly, the pair note that someone did try to trademark "Marijuana" for a drink, but it was denied with a bit of moralizing from the PTO: "the term MARIJUANA refers to an illicit drug that is associated with illegal behavior and adverse health consequences. The proposed mark is therefore immoral or scandalous and thus unregistrable." Personally, I think it's kind of awesome to have a trademark rejected for being "scandalous." I'm impressed.
Either way, the end result is basically that there doesn't appear to be much in the way of legal protections for the various brands of pot that are found in medical marijuana dispensaries. While Raustiala and Sprigman don't get into it, it would seem like this creates another "pure" market to study, to see what happens in a brand-based market without trademark protections. Is copying of brand names common? Do less potent forms of pot try to draft off of more famous brands? Or does the market have a way of working itself out? It seems like a worthwhile market to study for someone enterprising.
Update: By the way, if you find this interesting, Raustiala and Sprigman's new book, The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation is now available for pre-order...
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Filed Under: marijuana, plant varieties, pot, trademark
Reader Comments
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Can you PATENT your home grown genetically modified marijuana strain, ala Monsanto?
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Are you sure? I just Googled for it and it doesn't exist. Hopefully your reportage is more accurate.
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there's a lot of work being done by a lot of different groups to get something a little more standardized in place, usually based off of registered genetics. But in the end consumer protection comes down to experience and trust. If you didn't grow it, or know the grower, chances are, that chemdawg isn't.
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Pure awesome.
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Hopefully, your reading comprehension will become more accurate.
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Take lit doobie to mouth and inhale.
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Try searching for "Ranier Brand Fuji Apples" and see if you find them.
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Some of the imposters use microscopic glass beads to make the plant look like it has more THC crystals.
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and what illegal behavior and adverse health consequences are there?
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If all the articles here exhibited these characteristics this blog wouldn't be worth reading except as a source of cheap laughs. Fortunately they aren't (just some).
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My comprehension's better than your spelling, Insider. But at least you're willing to put a name to your misimpressions. Cornell alum?
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Stupid is as circular reasoning does.
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Even if the brand didn't exist, or if he named "Shamawalagaba Brand Fuji Apples" (so as to not be "shilling for a brand"), his point still stands; yet you choose to use this meaningless contradiction as evidence of his lapse in journalistic prowess.
...Why?
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That's an excellent approach -- you should aspire to be at most half as needlessly pedantic. Or perhaps 10% would be best, you decide what's appropriate for you...
Glad to give you the opportunity for a head start.
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Xeni Jardin attended a dinner where they used pot in a multitude of ways preparing food.
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/23/my-dinner-with-marijuana-chem.html
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It was a typo. I left out an i, which has now been fixed. It's not the end of the world. We make typos. Most people point them out, nicely, and we fix them.
Some people aren't so nice.
Either way, it wouldn't matter, because it was merely an example of how something could be a trademark. I could have just easily said "xkfjq;fj; Fuji Apples" and the point would have been just as valid.
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1) I didn't see you doing it.
2) I needed some up-to-date data points for my longitudinal study of epistemic closure's correlation to male aggression in partisan news sites. The general level of male rage around here makes it necessary to use a strong signal so it can be distinguished from the ambient background.
3) It was more respectful than accusing Masnick (with whom I am not on a first-name basis, unlike you) of writing while stoned.
4) Logic test. (You passed.)
HTH.
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Well fuck. There goes my idea for a "waste-of-taxpayer-money" research grant I was going to get rich with.
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Get out the Vote
I hope it passes.Vote for it!
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I do admit this about myself: Sometimes it is hard for me to be nice back when debating, and it's the only argument they can use against me....but I digress.
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ttrademark
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Trademark MJ
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Trademark
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