Rob McDonald comments in the Lexpert Special Edition: Agribusiness and Cannabis 2020 on the myriad of intellectual property protection needed in the cannabis industry.
Rob says, “Every business has these rights to keep in mind, but agribusiness and cannabis in particular, because they’re growing so rapidly . . . they have to be [especially] aware of their rights and take steps to protect their rights.” Retailers will also be able to create a look and feel to their stores that can be proprietary and protected as well.
Rob says that patents are a rapidly increasing area of IP protection in both agribusiness and cannabis. Many are related to pharmaceutical compositions, cultivation techniques, for methods in finding pests on plants, for extracting pharmaceutically active ingredients from cannabis, for vaporizers and cannabis-related paraphernalia.
“There are patents relating to cannabis-infused products that range from toothpastes to coffee beans to alcoholic beverages. There are just a plethora of intellectual property rights being protected through the patent system for cannabis and its related products. . . . There’s almost nothing that you can’t infuse with cannabis.”