Pubdate: Thu, 31 Dec 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2015 The Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Kristen Wyatt, The Associated Press

POT INDUSTRY ATTEMPTS TO BUILD BRANDS IN 'WILD WEST'

(AP) - Snoop Dogg has his own line of marijuana. So does Willie 
Nelson. Melissa Etheridge has a marijuana-infused wine. As the 
fast-growing marijuana industry emerges from the black market and 
starts looking like a mainstream industry, there's a scramble to 
brand and trademark pot products.

The celebrity endorsements are just the latest attempt to add cachet 
to a line of weed. Snoop Dogg calls his eight strains of weed "Dank 
 From the Doggfather Himself." Nelson's yet-to-be-released line says 
the pot is "born of the awed memories of musicians who visited 
Willie's bus after a show."

The pot industry's makeshift branding efforts, from celebrity names 
on boxes of weed to the many weed-themed T-shirts and stickers common 
in towns with a legal marijuana market, show the industry taking 
halting steps toward the mainstream.

Problem is, those weed brands aren't much more substantial than the 
labels they're printed on. Patents and trademarks are largely 
regulated by the federal government, which considers marijuana an 
illegal drug and therefore ineligible for any sort of legal protection.

The result is a Wild West environment of marijuana entrepreneurs 
trying to stake claims and establish cross-state markets using a 
patchwork of state laws. Consumers have no way of knowing that 
celebrity-branded pot is any different than what they could get in a 
plastic baggie from a corner drug dealer.

"You can't go into federal court to get federal benefits if you're a 
drug dealer," said Sam Kamin, a University of Denver law professor 
who tracks marijuana law.

That doesn't mean that the pot business isn't trying.

Hundreds of marijuana-related patents have likely been requested from 
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to those who work in 
the industry. Exact numbers aren't available because pending patent 
information isn't public.

So far, federal authorities either ignored or rejected marijuana 
patent and trademark requests, as in the 2010 case of a California 
weed-delivery service that applied to trademark its name, "The Canny Bus."

"They haven't issued a single patent yet. But generally speaking, 
there is broad agreement within the patent law community that they 
will," said Eric Greenbaum, director of intellectual property for 
Vireo Health, which is seeking a patent for a strain of marijuana to 
treat seizures.

Companies like Vireo are betting that if marijuana becomes legal 
nationally, they will be first in line to claim legal ownership of 
whichever type of marijuana they have already developed.

Pot companies also are filing state-level trademarks, thereby 
avoiding the snag in a federal trademark application: the requirement 
that the mark is used in interstate commerce, which remains 
off-limits for pot companies. In Colorado, for example, there are 
nearly 700 trade names and 200 trademarks registered that include the 
word "marijuana" or a synonym, Kamin said.

Pot producers also are claiming everything they can that doesn't 
involve actual weed. So a marijuana company could trademark its logo 
or patent a process for packaging something, without mentioning that 
the "something" is marijuana.

"We're in a new industry, where the benefits of federal protection 
aren't open to us," said John Lord, CEO of LivWell, a 10-store chain 
of Colorado marijuana shops that recently entered an agreement to 
sell Leafs By Snoop, the entertainer's new line of marijuana.

Wyatt writes for The Associated Press.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom