Category: Legal

As the cannabis industry grows, companies must adapt to the challenges arising from that growth, including exploiting any available competitive advantages.

As more states legalize cannabis, the relationship between employers and an employee’s legal cannabis use grows increasingly uncertain.

Predictably, attempts to tracking and tracing software have instead created a chimera of regulation, big data and state-sanctioned monopolies.

Despite its enormous potential, growth of the hemp industry is stymied by misinformation and states that refuse to legalize the crop.

Farmers engaged in dwindling industries such as tobacco are looking for diversity in their agricultural products — and they are looking to cannabis to improve their economic situation.

Cannabis, the fastest growing industry in the U.S. job market today, is embracing one of America’s most popular business expansion engines — franchising. Denver-based ONE Cannabis and Florida-based Miracle Leaf each claim to be awarding franchises to catapult their growth, the former franchising cannabis dispensaries and the latter medical marijuana…

Brands are often a company’s most valuable asset and will be key to the developing cannabis industry. For example, in 2018, Interbrand, a global branding consulting firm, valued the Coca-Cola brand at $66.3 billion and the Budweiser brand at $15.6 billion. As the cannabis industry grows, brands will also become…

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, counterfeiting should be quite the compliment. But in the cannabis industry, like other industries, counterfeiting not only hurts a company’s bottom line, but also weakens the value of their intellectual property, exposes them to reputation risk and puts them in the crosshairs…

Trademark practitioners, hemp growers and hemp-derived product manufacturers have long struggled with the clash of federal and state laws regarding protection of trademarks. Historically, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has refused registration of marks that include cannabis, hemp, CBD or other derived products on the basis that these…

Prospective adult-use cannabis operators in Massachusetts cannot pay lip service to diversity if they want to be awarded a permit. In late April, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission denied an adult-use production permit on grounds that the applicant failed to demonstrate a sufficient commitment to diversity and inclusion — an…