The Ridiculous Rush To Try To Patent Pot

from the *sigh* dept

Over the years, we've had a whole bunch of posts demonstrating various industries where there is no direct intellectual property protection -- and yet where we still find tremendous innovation and competition. These include things like the fashion industry (where you can't copyright fashion designs), the restaurant industry and some others. In fact, a few years ago, a couple of law professors wrote an entire book highlighting competitive and innovative industries where there was a lack of intellectual property protection. And, yet, time and time again, we see people who show up in the areas where there's lots of competition and lots of innovation, and insist that those industries need more intellectual property protection.

The latest such industry? Apparently the legalized weed industry.

As you're probably aware, the US has been moving more and more towards legalizing marijuana, starting mostly with "medical marijuana" (and I use the quote marks there very deliberately), and increasingly opening it up for all kinds of recreational use (four states so far...). And, if you've paid any attention to the legalized pot business at all, you'd know that it's (1) a huge business with (2) tons and tons of competition and (3) an incredible amount of innovation. Lots of pot growers are trying to come up with newer and better strains, and there's a ton of other innovation going on concerning ways to ingest the stuff.

But the lawyers are descending... and they're telling people they need to "protect" everything. The article linked above, in the SF Chronicle, is ridiculous on multiple levels. It zips back and forth between patents and trademarks, doing little to explain the (vast) difference between the two. It also presents an entirely one-sided story, insisting (totally incorrectly) that "venture capitalists" require intellectual property protection to invest:

Investors, particularly those coming from the tech world, “are attuned to coming into a company and trying to secure as much intellectual property as they can quickly,” said Timothy Yim, the Startup Policy Lab’s director of data and privacy, who counsels cannabis-related startups.

“They want to make sure that you have as much of your intellectual property secured as possible” before the invest, said Kyndra Miller, an attorney whose San FranciscoCannabusiness Law practice specializes in weed clients, including Blake.

It's true that there are some investors focused on "intellectual property," but they tend not to be very good. Most of the top investors have no problem at all admitting that focusing on intellectual property is a mistake, because good venture capitalists are betting on upside. All intellectual property does is protect your downside risk most of the time. But the article just presents it as fact and keeps repeating the misleading message that locking down intellectual property is "necessary."

“A year and a half ago, we started telling people to think about (intellectual property) because this is what’s coming down the line,” said Reggie Gaudino, vice president for scientific operations and director of intellectual property at Steep Hill Labs, a Berkeley cannabis analytics lab with operations in several states. “Only in the last few months have people started to listen to what we had to say.”

Even worse, the article (again, ridiculously and misleadingly) insists that "open source" is somehow anti-business and a "kumbaya" concept, rather than a good business strategy:

“The reality is that most mature businesses have established the importance of intellectual property,” said Gaudino. “But one of the first things I noticed (in the cannabis industry) is that none of growers and breeders wanted to discuss that. They’d say, ‘No, we’re all open source,’ and the whole cannabis kumbaya stuff. And I’d say, ‘Let me know how that works out for you, because once this is legal, Big Pharma and Big Ag are going to come in here and grab whatever they can.’”

The reality is that big businesses tend to focus on intellectual property because they stopped innovating, so rather than compete, they like to use the law to block competition. And tons of open source offerings are very much about real (big) businesses, and there's no reason that shouldn't be true in other fields as well.

There's nothing wrong with folks in the industry trademarking their brand names and specific designs and such, but the idea that people should start to look to "patent" specific strains is deeply problematic:

To try to bring some order to the industry through science, Steep Hill analysts are using leading-edge technology, like a $1 million DNA sequencer, to “try to establish the genetic map of cannabis” as Gaudino puts it.

He said all of the marijuana strains found on dispensary shelves are blends “from the hand of man,” and he believes that they will be able to be patented once they are definitively mapped. In the last 1½ years, Steep Hill scientists have accumulated 1,000 samples of weed, sifting through some 400 strains that are on the market. Many of them, Gaudino said, share numerous similarities.

In other words -- using patents to limit innovation and competition, which is the exact opposite purpose that the law is intended for -- and in an industry that's already thriving, with tremendous innovation and competition. Once again, we see more evidence of how frequently patents have nothing to do with "promoting" innovation, but are used to stifle innovation and competition.

Filed Under: intellectual property, marijuana, patents, pot, reggie gaudino, weed
Companies: steep hill labs

DailyDirt: Breaking Bad... With Yeast?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've mentioned before how yeast can produce a bunch of useful stuff, beyond bread and beer. Synthetic biology promises to give us engineered microorganisms that can make almost any specialty chemical or even some biofuels. Brewing medicine might not be too far away, and it might be incredibly difficult to control "controlled substances" in the very near future.

• Genetically modified yeast can produce opiates similar to morphine. And it looks like several other derivatives of potent painkillers can be made this way, too, possibly leading to ones that are less addictive or that have fewer side effects. [url]
• Other scientists have coaxed yeast into producing THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), one of the psychoactive compounds in marijuana. It's still pretty difficult to do, but presumably, it will get easier and more economical. And by then, we'll have THC-infused beer brewed and on tap. [url]
• Meanwhile, the FDA is proposing new rules to help distinguish copycat pharmaceuticals and biosimilar drugs. Adding four random letters to the end of a generic name medicine could reduce some confusion, but hopefully, in the end, everyone who needs critical drugs will get access to more affordable pharmaceuticals. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: biology, biosimilar, biotech, drugs, fda, gmo, health, marijuana, medicine, microorganisms, morphine, opiates, painkillers, pharmaceuticals, synthetic biology, tetrahydrocannabinol, thc, yeast

DailyDirt: What (Not) To Do With Smart Kids...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Last week, lots of people were outraged that a 14yo kid was handcuffed and arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. Some folks tried to point out that such extracurricular projects should never be brought to school... because we live in a "day and age" of terror or something. That suggestion -- that kids need to somehow restrict their enthusiasm for trying to impress their teachers with something they've made outside of school -- is awful. The education system is often faulted for failing to improve test scores and leaving more than "no children" behind. However, Ahmed Mohamed's experience highlights that schools might want to start thinking more about how to identify talent and nurture skills that are valuable beyond taking tests.

• High-ability students have not been well-studied to determine how they might best be served by teachers. Should they be allowed to skip grades or just specific classes? Should teachers give them extra projects? Does class size matter for high-ability students? It's a shame that many gifted children are overlooked -- or that they are recognized (hopefully in a positive way), but that no one is certain quite what to do with them. [url]
• An 11yo boy in a gifted-and-talented program in Virginia brought a leaf to school -- that was mistakenly thought to be a marijuana leaf. The result was charges of marijuana possession in juvenile court, a year of suspension, and probation terms that mean he'll be searched for drugs every day, twice a day. Quite a punishment. For. A. Leaf. [url]
• Longer school days and more school days in a year seem like good ideas -- but making kids stay in school longer isn't necessarily a good thing. Learning is generally not taught as a joyful, fun thing to do, but a chore -- and making that chore more difficult and tiring isn't a recipe for creating a society of lifetime learners. [url]
• In 2013, a then-16yo Kiera Wilmot brought a science fair project to her high school in Florida. It wasn't a particularly novel experiment, mixing toilet bowl cleaner (some hydrochloric acid) with aluminum foil. However, the reaction (excuse the chemistry pun) was far greater than the smoke and gases. Wilmot was arrested, charged with two felonies, and had to attend a different school for troubled teens. Thankfully, she was allowed back to her original school for her senior year, and she's moved on to college without a criminal record following her. But how about we try not to jump to the worst conclusions about kids, especially when all the evidence points to nerdy hobbies that should be encouraged? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ahmed mohamed, crime, education, kiera wilmot, learning, marijuana, punishment, schools, teachers

Cops Raid Marijuana Dispensary In Order To Play Darts, Sample Edibles And Offer To Kick Amputee Owner 'In The Nub'

from the LOL,-CIVILIANS dept

If we accept the premise that law enforcement and intelligence agencies encroach on personal freedoms and rights in "the public interest" -- i.e., to ensure the safety of non-criminals -- then we have to ask ourselves how this raid of a medical marijuana dispensary fits into this thought process. [via CJ Ciaramella]

Santa Ana (CA) cops raided a pot dispensary -- not because the items for sale were illegal under local laws -- but simply because it was unlicensed. Sure, having the proper paperwork in place is important, but this dispensary was in line to receive authorization from the city -- a process delayed by the locality's faulty licensing "lottery" system, which was gamed by businesses who "stuffed" the selection box by purchasing multiple bids.

The PD performing the raid treated this lack of proper paperwork like it was the Zeta Cartel operating under its nose. The video captured by the dispensary's cameras shows heavily-armed cops -- some wearing ski masks -- smashing through two doors and yelling at the peaceably-assembled customers to lie on the floor. Then -- somehow -- it gets worse.

The cops tear the place apart, strip cameras from the walls and yank the DVR off the shelf in the back room. They play darts, sample the presumably-cannabis-laced goods, and otherwise fuck around. Why? Because there is absolutely no danger present, despite the use of ski masks, weapons and tactical gear. This is "public safety" being ensured by a raid on a sitting duck that threatened no harm to the surrounding community. The final result of all this noise and damage? Tickets for violating a city ordinance.

But despite their expertise, the cops missed a couple of cameras. And that's going to hurt them. Especially when one female cop is caught on camera disparaging one of the owners -- an amputee confined to a wheelchair -- by stating she wanted to kick her in the "nub." (Enjoy the first few seconds of this video, where a cop attempts to break down a set of metal PULL doors by hammering them in the wrong direction with his ram.)


The police department has responded to the recording that got away with nonsensical claims that the released footage is "non-chronological" and "edited." I can't even imagine what the full footage shows, other than there being a bit more breathing room between unprofessional actions and misconduct on the part of the raiding officers.

This is the charade of drug enforcement: cops raiding a dispensary for code violations, rather than its potential ability to diminish the safety of other Santa Ana residents. And doing it in full battle gear, as though it expected a hail of gunfire in response to its backdoor-smashing entry. The entire incident is pathetic, bordering on nauseating: a pointless, vulgar display of power that wreaked havoc on a local business simply in order to issue two citations.

Filed Under: california, marijuana, paperwork, police, raid, santa ana

DailyDirt: Drugs Are Baaaad, mmKay?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If we really wanted to tackle drug problems, we might want to try alternatives to alcohol that might have antidotes. However, we've tried to outlaw alcohol before, and it didn't turn out too well. Marijuana is beginning to become slightly less illegal (not on the federal level), and some studies show it's not nearly as harmful a drug as some folks believe it is. Put down your bongs, stop giggling at that cartoon you've been watching all day, and check out some of these links on the effects of marijuana.

• Marijuana could actually be a performance-enhancing drug for athletes who run ultramarathons. After running a hundred miles, some runners enjoy some stress-relieving painkillers that prevent nausea and give you the munchies. [url]
• In national polls, almost half the US population admits to having tried marijuana. As more states legalize pot, some health researchers say there aren't enough long-term health studies to assess its risks. [url]
• A recent study of recreational drugs ranks marijuana as the least risky drug -- far behind alcohol, heroin, cocaine, tobacco and meth. But the stats just say you're not going to die anytime soon from weed, not that it's perfectly safe to abuse. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: alcohol, drugs, marijuana, recreational drugs, smoking, tobacco, ultramarathon

NYPD Tells Brooklyn Officers To Continue Making Low-Level Drug Arrests DA Has Stated He Won't Prosecute

from the work-harder,-not-smarter dept

New York's finest, formerly Mayor Bloomberg's Personal Army, has decided it's going to do things its own way, even if it means generating truly meaningless arrests.

The NYPD is telling its officers to keep making the lower-level marijuana busts that they had been, despite a recent memo from Brooklyn DA Kenneth Thompson that his office would no longer prosecute such cases…

Yes, no one tells the NYPD what to do, not even the District Attorney. The NYPD's memo -- one that plainly states it will arrest people who will never be prosecuted -- is required reading for Brooklyn precincts for the next 10 days, just to ensure those police officers understand their workday will contain a certain amount of deliberate futility.

On one hand, the memo does contain a good point -- law enforcement should be consistent across all of New York's boroughs. On the other hand, it plainly states that the NYPD is more interested in generating paperwork and empty arrest statistics than approaching the DA's announcement in a more reasonable fashion.

Here's what DA Thompson was hoping to accomplish with his decision to not pursue low-level drug offenders.

The move was intended to "make better use of limited law enforcement resources and to prevent offenders – who are disproportionately young men of color – from being saddled with a criminal record for a minor, non-violent offense," according to a statement.

This could have been seen as an indication of where the department should head -- towards a more reasonable stance on drug enforcement. Instead, it's been viewed as "inconsistency" and responded to with all the obstinance the department is famous for.

DA Thompson's order really doesn't eliminate that many possession arrests. His memo stated that those smoking in public (especially around children), 16-17-year-old offenders (who will be placed into a diversion program) and people with existing criminal records will still be prosecuted. This just leaves mainly the truly harmless: recreational users.

But the War on Drugs is every bit as essential to the NYPD as the War on Terror, and the NYPD (with new chief Bill Bratton's blessing) will continue to make meaningless arrests -- arrests made even more meaningless by DA Thompson's announcement.

If nothing else, this ensures the sort of job security that's usually only touted in sarcastic tones by the deeply cynical. According to the New York Times, arresting recreational users is full-time work for Brooklyn cops.

Over the past 15 years, marijuana arrests in New York have soared, partly because a rising number of stop-and-frisk encounters led to searches of people’s pockets.

There were 8,150 cases in Brooklyn in which the top count was a minor marijuana possession charge in the year ending June 30, according to the memo on Tuesday. Marijuana arrests have decreased during the first six months of this year, compared with the same period in 2013.

That decrease in marijuana arrests is directly related to the decline in stop-and-frisk encounters after a court decision and a new city law curbed this controversial program. It's quite obviously not (the NYPD's directive confirms it) the result of the NYPD shifting its focus to more serious criminal activity.

There's hardly anything more ridiculous than deploying law enforcement officers -- with all their expertise and training -- to bust users of a drug that has been legalized in two states for recreational use and in a host of other states for medical use. There's nothing more ridiculous than sending officers out to bust recreational users and serve them up to a DA who's just going to let them go -- and one that specifically told the department he would not prosecute.

Filed Under: brooklyn, drug arrests, kenneth thompson, marijuana, nypd, prosecution

Police Chief Testifies Against Legalizing Marijuana With Parody Newspaper Article

from the weeding-out-the-jokes dept

They say that really well done parody is close enough to the truth to be funny. That's certainly correct, but it can occasionally create some problems, as we've seen in the past. Parody can anger the target of the scorn, it can lead to charges of defamation, and parody news stories can occasionally infect even the, ahem, most fair and balanced cable news stations. I guess the point is that not everyone has enough of a sense of humor to find some parody funny, or even to realize that it is indeed parody.

The latter is the case with this story about Annapolis Police Chief Michael Pristoop, who had diligently prepared before testifying before a state panel on the potential for legalizing marijuana.

In researching his testimony against two bills before the Judicial Proceedings Committee, Pristoop said, he had found a news article to illustrate the risks of legalization: 37 people in Colorado, he said, had died of marijuana oversdoses on the very day that the state legalized pot.

“When he said it, everyone in the room dropped their laptops,” Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Montgomery) said in an e-mail.

Proving, of course, that stupid can in fact cause physical harm and property destruction. See, the problem is that Pristoop's source for his marijuana massacre was The Daily Currant, which is a comedic parody magazine. The article and its claims were a joke. So, it appears, were Pristoop's efforts at vetting the sources he found on the always treacherous interwebz. Similar grades should be assigned to Pristoop's abilities at admitting error.

“I apologize for the information I provided concerning the deaths. I believed the information I obtained was accurate, but I now know the story is nothing more than an urban legend,” Pristoop said. “This does not take away from the other facts presented in opposition to legalization or the good work of the Maryland Chiefs and Maryland Sheriffs Associations.”

An urban legend is a fictional story circulated through a community that might be a tad unsure of whether it is indeed fiction. Ghost stories, in other words, or the threat of high school seniors hazing incoming freshman. Those are urban legends. The Daily Currant's article was a joke made up whole cloth for the purposes of making people laugh. Anyone with a modicum of interest and education into the health risks associated with marijuana use would know that immediate death simply isn't one of them.

Fortunately, others in the police departments of Maryland have a better handle on this whole humor thing, as evidenced by Maj. Scott Baker.

“His numbers are up in smoke,” Baker acknowledged Wednesday — a sly tip of the hat to Cheech & Chong’s 1978 stoner movie.

Funny, I was going to make a comment about how Pristoop's facts were half-baked...

Filed Under: annapolis, marijuana, michael pristoop, parody

DailyDirt: Diets That Work...?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some people think losing weight is simple: just eat less. But that formula isn't as easy to put into practice as it sounds. There are also various arguments that overeating is triggered by the foods we eat or by hormonal changes that are not under conscious control. Researchers are studying a variety of variables that effect weight loss/gain and associated symptoms, and here are just a few interesting links on the research for fighting fat.

• The Nutritional Science Initiative (NuSI) is an organization dedicated to improving the quality of research for nutrition and obesity. NuSI is currently looking to clarify the root causes of obesity (and related conditions), determining what makes people obese: overeating itself or hormonal/biochemical triggers that cause overeating. [url]
• Consuming seaweed enriched toast seemed to get some people to subsequently eat 179 fewer calories for the rest of the day. The seaweed was ground up and added to the bread without affecting the taste, and it apparently acts as a bulking agent in the stomach to make people feel full. [url]
• Is snacking at night worse than eating the same thing in the morning? Possibly. It might not just be what you eat, but when you eat it. [url]
• Marijuana smokers tend to eat more than 600 extra calories in a day, but for some reason, they have slimmer waists, higher levels of HDL and lower insulin levels and insulin resistance. So if you needed another reason to smoke pot, it's possibly a treatment for obesity and diabetes.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: calories, diets, food, hdl, hunger, insulin, insulin resistance, marijuana, nusi, nutrition, obesity, seaweed, smokers, snacking

Anti-Medical Marijuana Committee Fails To Register Published URL, Hilarity Ensues

from the you-can't-like,-OWN-a-URL,-man dept

Time for a pop quiz: get out your no. 2 iPads and see if you can figure out which steps in this process are out of order.

It's election season, a time when man's (and more recently, woman's) thoughts turn towards shutting off the TV, radio and phone until mid-November. But! Things must be voted on, including such controversial issues as legalizing medical marijuana and authorizing dispensaries. As an opponent of weed-based medicines, you vow to fight this with every ounce/gram of your being. You set your plan in action.

1. Pick a name for your committee. ("No on Question 3")
2. Pick out a suitable URL ("votenoonquestion3.org")
3. Get your committee and its pertinent information added to the official voters' guide (both print and online.)
4. Register URL.
5. Become aghast.

Can anyone point out where Vote No on Question 3 went wrong? Here are some visual aids, taken from votenoonquestion3.org:

You see, the internet is like magic. And like most magic, it can be used for entertainment purposes. All the do-gooding in the world doesn't amount to much if you forget to register your URL. While you're busy enjoying that "new ink" smell of freshly printed Voter's Guides, someone quicker on the draw is undermining your "marijuana is bad" propaganda proselytizing information with hilariously over-the-top headlines. 

The good news is that the online voters' guide sports the corrected URL: mavotenoonquestion3.com

The bad news is that the paper version will carry the old URL permanently. Of course, very few people are willing to type in a URL by hand, but as news of this blunder spreads, the fake site with the real URL will be receiving much more attention, voters' guide correction or no.

Here's the official reaction from No on Question 3 spokesman, Kevin Sabet:

"It's funny and upsetting, I guess, at the same time."

Yeah. Largely the first part. And to think, the committee can't even blame a late afternoon smokeout for the mental slip.

This statement, however, seems both more on point and more disingenuous:

The group sent out a press release saying proponents of medical marijuana were tampering with the democratic process through “underhanded efforts.”

Sabet admits the committee made a mistake and yet, the press release attempts to paint No on Question 3 as the victim of villainous pot smokers rather than treating it like the self-inflicted wound it is.

Oh, and here's more bad news for the "No" side:

The Globe notes that the No on Question 3 campaign has managed to collect all of $600 so far, compared to the $1 million or so that supporters of the initiative have received from Peter Lewis, a longtime patron of drug policy reform.

Maybe it's time to admit your fears of a weed-loaded America are overblown, especially when you've just been outmaneuvered (and outspent) by a bunch of stoners.

Filed Under: errors, marijuana, politics, registration, urls, vote no

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...

Filed Under: marijuana, plant varieties, pot, trademark