The regulation of hashish has developed dramatically over the past century. For a lot of that point, hashish was primarily a priority for the legal regulation. Nevertheless, in live performance with the strikes in some jurisdictions in the direction of decriminalization or legalization of medical and leisure makes use of of hashish, the chance to commercialize marijuana and different hashish merchandise has prompted larger consideration to mental property rights. Authorized students and practitioners have been discussing this matter for effectively over a decade, with Mental Property and Hashish as the newest addition to that literature. Edited by Natalie Corthésy, Enrico Bonadio and Yentyl Williams, the quantity brings collectively contributions that run the gamut of IP rights, from patents and commerce marks to copyright and geographical indications (GIs).
The primary a part of the guide focuses on branding. Luke Sebastian Zimmerman critiques the challenges for the safety of cannabis-related commerce marks within the USA, the place the ‘lawful use’ requirement has been a significant barrier to federal registration. The place has relaxed barely for hemp lately, so the US Patent and Trademark Workplace requires any cannabis-related commerce marks to limit their items and providers to hemp that meets the definition within the 2018 Farm Invoice, specifically a THC focus no greater than 0.3 per cent. The chapter highlights the significance of the efforts to reschedule hashish below the Managed Substances Act, which can broaden the products or providers for which commerce marks is perhaps registered. Certainly, after the guide was printed, US President Trump issued an govt order in December 2025 to expedite the reclassification of hashish from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug.1 As Zimmerman explains, nonetheless, such a change would nonetheless fall in need of resolving all of the obstacles to federal commerce mark registration.
