Cannabis advertising has always been a precarious art. From first amendment commercial speech issues to zealous state marketing and promotion regulations to false claim lawsuits, cannabis advertising can go down some dark rabbit holes. Notoriously, tech giants like Instagram and Facebook would take down cannabis-related ad content for violating site terms and conditions around the
Will we see tax reform in 2023 for cannabis sellers? Specifically, will Congress finally get something done about the pain inflicted on industry by the Internal Revenue Code at 26 USC § 280E? (“IRC 28oE”.) It feels like a long shot, but you never know. After many attempts to get the SAFE Banking Act through
Welcome to Part 4 in our series on New York’s Cannabis Retail Dispensary Regulations. For prior posts in this series, check out the following: New York’s Cannabis Retail Dispensary Guidelines are Here! New York’s Cannabis Retail Dispensary Guidelines, Part 1: Dispensary Operations New York’s Cannabis Retail Dispensary Guidelines, Part 2: Security and Surveillance New York’s
Cannabis litigation is growing as the industry matures. Recently, we’ve seen a suit related to false advertising, but we’re also seeing more traditional business litigation around partnership issues and contract breaches. In Los Angeles, the repeal of Prop. D and implementation of Measure M caused a lot of industry infighting, some of which led to
Cannabis brands are known for clever branding and advertising. In some instances, this gets cannabis companies in trouble. See Cannabis Trademark Litigation: Wrigley Wins. Sometimes cannabis companies try to hew the parody line when riffing on an existing trademark. See Reminder: The Parody Defense to Trademark Infringement is Tricky. As my cannabis litigation colleague, Jihee
Federal or state trademarks, which should I register? This is a question we regularly get in our IP practice. For cannabis brands in particular, the answer is often straightforward. The lawful use requirement The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is responsible for registering trademarks at the federal level. According to the Trademark Act
We’ve anticipated this for a while, but a recent lawsuit indicates that certain marijuana company mislabeling antics are getting called out, regarding false advertising. One recent lawsuit heralds a potential new wave of litigation. The lawsuit The plaintiffs are two California consumers who sued a California marijuana company, DreamFields Brands, Inc. and Med for America
As we previously summarized, on Friday, October 28, 2022, the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) released its “Guidance for Adult-Use Dispensaries” (the Regulations). The Regulations provide guidance for Conditional Adult-Use Retails Dispensary (CAURD) licensees and applicants. While we believed that the Regulations could be explained in only five (5) parts, after we reviewed the Regulations,
Some of the details of German marijuana legalization were given over to the German press last week. Yesterday though, the government’s plan for German marijuana legalization was approved by the Federal Cabinet. We’ve blogged about Germany’s steady progress to legalization a few times now (see here and here), and it appears that the Germans are
Mike Tyson wants to market cannabis edibles shaped like ears with bite marks in them. Love him or hate him, you have to admit it’s clever. He’s apparently having a hard time getting his “Mike Bites” to market, due to regulators who apparently can’t take a joke or regulations that don’t seem to make any
