Cannabis businesses need money – and lots of it – to operate. Being mostly startups, operational profits are not enough to sustain their business. So cannabis businesses take on outside capital generally in one of two ways: taking on debt from cannabis lenders or bringing in equity investors. Due to industry volatility and a crash
In this post, we will answer the cannabis patent questions that were submitted to us. Please visit our Cannabis Intellectual Property page for more information about protecting your brand. What do you think about using the Plant Variety Protection Act to protect strains? The Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) can provide protection for both asexually
Without much fanfare, the Dormitory Authority – State of New York (or DASNY) issued a request for proposal (RFP) for design-build services for conditional adult-use retail dispensaries (CAURDs). DASNY included a concept program (see Addendum 3) that details the build-out requirements for retail dispensaries selected as part of the CAURD social equity program. The Cannabis
The Texas Supreme Court recently upheld the state’s smokable hemp ban. This is bad news for the smokable hemp industry inside and outside of Texas. Today, we’ll look at what happened. As our readers know, the federal 2018 Farm Bill classified “hemp” as an agricultural product and removed hemp from schedule I of the federal
Chambers and Partners, a London-headquartered research company that publishes detailed rankings of the world’s leading law firms and lawyers, recently named Harris Sliwoski one of the top cannabis law firms in the United States, in Band 2, and singled out Vince Sliwoski as a cannabis business lawyer deserving special recognition. This was the second straight
Editor’s Note: A version of this article by Fred Rocafort was first published on Law360. The U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections, found in the First Amendment, may present a legal recourse for cannabis brands in trouble for using marks that are similar to famous trademarks. To be clear, a free speech argument will not be
On January 1, 2023, California’s Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) will begin accepting applications for large cultivation licenses for the first time ever. California law authorized large cultivation licenses years ago. But, the law caveat was that applicants could not apply for large cultivation licenses until 2023. And on June 17, the DCC announced it
Gustavo Petro is Colombia’s next president, following his electoral win on June 19. The election of its first leftist president, together with its first Afro-Colombian vice-president, is no doubt a momentous event for Latin America’s third-most populous country. What will a Petro presidency mean for cannabis? According to Petro’s platform, a “focus on prohibitionism …
On the heels of our recent intellectual property webinar, we received some requests for real world examples of how trademark infringement litigation plays out in the courts. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you see things), trademark infringement litigation cases are filed on an almost daily basis throughout the country, and this one filed this
On June 14, the Sixth Panel (Sexta Turma) of Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (Superior Tribunal de Justiça, or STJ) issued a decision allowing cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes. The STJ is responsible for uniformizing the interpretation of Brazilian federal law across the country, and serves as the court of final appeal for cases
