Cannabis Brands and China Challenges
Cannabis brands account for a sizeable component of my law firm’s intellectual property work (and, indeed, our work generally). Historically, there has been little overlap between our cannabis and China practice areas, beyond our representing a number of cannabis ancillary product companies on their China manufacturing matters. This is starting to change, as we increasingly see bad-faith actors in China targeting cannabis brands’ trademarks. This intersection carries important implications that cannabis business owners need to understand.
This post highlights the emerging IP challenges cannabis brands face from China and provides proactive strategies for cannabis brands to fight back.
China Trademark Squatting
We can only speculate about what is driving this emerging phenomenon. Most likely, it is partly a new manifestation of an old China problem: trademark squatters. Trademark squatters in China now recognize that, much like other brands, cannabis brands also source various products from the country. Obviously we are not talking about cannabis or cannabis derivatives, but rather goods such as vapes, trimmers, merch, packaging, cosmetics, etc. Squatters generally register trademarks being used by brands like yours in the hope that eventually you will pay them to acquire control over “your” trademarks. And guess what, squatting often works,
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