Lawful use in commerce is a requirement for a trademark to be registered in the United States. For cannabis brands, this means that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will not register trademarks used in connection with products that are illegal under federal law, most notably marijuana. However, USPTO’s problematic approach to lawful
Cosmetics are something of a bright spot when it comes to federal cannabis regulation. Unfortunately, however, there is quite a bit of misunderstanding when it comes to the federal legal framework for cannabis cosmetics. Following up on question that was asked during a recent webinar, here are the basics of which cannabis brands should be
As we blogged about last week, the SAFE Banking Act is trying to claw its way back from the dead during this lame duck session of Congress. Interestingly, on December 2, Punchbowl News reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memo outlining its “issues” with the SAFE Banking Act. Here’s the memo (“Memo”).
President Biden’s recent announcement of a pardon for federal cannabis offenses has caught the attention of observers abroad. In fact, I was quoted in an article by Brazilian journalist Anita Krepp on the subject. Unfortunately, the example being set by Biden for other countries is, in part, a bad one. To be clear, we are
Last week, I wrote a piece entitled “Deschedule Cannabis, Don’t Reschedule It.” The post came on the heels of President Joe Biden’s announcement that the federal government is considering the federal scheduling of cannabis. As I noted, rescheduling cannabis to schedule II or below is a bad idea, because it would subject cannabis to DEA
On September 29, I spoke on an opening panel at the 7th annual Cannabis Law Conference for the Cannabis Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan. My co-panelist was the renowned Brookings political scientist John Hudak. One of John’s specialty areas is state and federal marijuana policy. The title of our panel was “Update
I have a bunch of thoughts actually, none of them so flattering. I’m going to break them down by category. The pardons themselves don’t do much President Biden pardoned 6,500 people previously convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law. The pardons don’t release anyone from prison, as no one was in federal prison
On October 6, 2022, President Joe Biden announced a retroactive pardon for simple possession of marijuana. He also announced that the federal government will review marijuana’s federal scheduling. His announcement suggests that the federal government may reschedule cannabis or even deschedule cannabis. Rescheduling cannabis is a bad idea, as I explain below. If the government
The Oregon marijuana industry is hurting, much like industry in California and other states. Among the many reasons (overproduction, market saturation) is that federal marijuana laws have not been reformed at all. For years marijuana entrepreneurs and their cheerleaders have repeated the refrain that federal reform of marijuana laws is just around the corner. These
What is the TCPA again? For years past, we regularly counseled our clients about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) because the cannabis industry, like many others, were being targeted for TCPA violations which were sometimes legitimate, sometimes not. For those who are still unfamiliar, the TCPA is a federal statute that was passed in
