Anti-Medical Marijuana Committee Fails To Register Published URL, Hilarity Ensues

Tim Cushing — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:57:00 PDT

Time for a pop quiz: get out your no. 2 iPads and see if you can figure out which steps in this process are out of order.

It's election season, a time when man's (and more recently, woman's) thoughts turn towards shutting off the TV, radio and phone until mid-November. But! Things must be voted on, including such controversial issues as legalizing medical marijuana and authorizing dispensaries. As an opponent of weed-based medicines, you vow to fight this with every ounce/gram of your being. You set your plan in action.

1. Pick a name for your committee. ("No on Question 3")
2. Pick out a suitable URL ("votenoonquestion3.org")
3. Get your committee and its pertinent information added to the official voters' guide (both print and online.)
4. Register URL.
5. Become aghast.

Can anyone point out where Vote No on Question 3 went wrong? Here are some visual aids, taken from votenoonquestion3.org:

You see, the internet is like magic. And like most magic, it can be used for entertainment purposes. All the do-gooding in the world doesn't amount to much if you forget to register your URL. While you're busy enjoying that "new ink" smell of freshly printed Voter's Guides, someone quicker on the draw is undermining your "marijuana is bad" ~~propaganda~~ ~~proselytizing~~ information with hilariously over-the-top headlines.

The good news is that the online voters' guide sports the corrected URL: mavotenoonquestion3.com

The bad news is that the paper version will carry the old URL permanently. Of course, very few people are willing to type in a URL by hand, but as news of this blunder spreads, the fake site with the real URL will be receiving much more attention, voters' guide correction or no.

Here's the official reaction from No on Question 3 spokesman, Kevin Sabet:

"It's funny and upsetting, I guess, at the same time."

Yeah. Largely the first part. And to think, the committee can't even blame a late afternoon smokeout for the mental slip.

This statement, however, seems both more on point and more disingenuous:

The group sent out a press release saying proponents of medical marijuana were tampering with the democratic process through “underhanded efforts.”

Sabet admits the committee made a mistake and yet, the press release attempts to paint No on Question 3 as the victim of villainous pot smokers rather than treating it like the self-inflicted wound it is.

Oh, and here's more bad news for the "No" side:

The Globe notes that the No on Question 3 campaign has managed to collect all of $600 so far, compared to the $1 million or so that supporters of the initiative have received from Peter Lewis, a longtime patron of drug policy reform.

Maybe it's time to admit your fears of a weed-loaded America are overblown, especially when you've just been outmaneuvered (and outspent) by a bunch of stoners.

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Can You Trademark Your Pot?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:04:00 PDT

Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman, continuing their excellent blogging (soon to be in book form) about markets succeeding in absence of intellectual property, have taken a look at the question of whether or not different brands of marijuana can be covered by trademark. With the increasing legality of medical marijuana, it's not uncommon for different strands to get their own brands. However, as the two note, plant varieties cannot be trademarked, but you can build a brand on top of one. So, as an example, Fuji apples cannot be trademarked, because that's a variety -- but Rainier Brand Fuji Apples is a trademark.

Of course, if you were dealing with a pot brand rather than a variety, could you trademark it? Well, you don't need to register a trademark to get protections. There are common law trademarks which get you pretty far without registering -- though it doesn't appear that anyone's tested such a pot trademark in court. As for a registered trademark, the USPTO apparently created a medical marijuana category for trademarks... very, very briefly. And then someone apparently realized this might be a political nightmare and that category suddenly disappeared.

Amusingly, the pair note that someone did try to trademark "Marijuana" for a drink, but it was denied with a bit of moralizing from the PTO: "the term MARIJUANA refers to an illicit drug that is associated with illegal behavior and adverse health consequences. The proposed mark is therefore immoral or scandalous and thus unregistrable." Personally, I think it's kind of awesome to have a trademark rejected for being "scandalous." I'm impressed.

Either way, the end result is basically that there doesn't appear to be much in the way of legal protections for the various brands of pot that are found in medical marijuana dispensaries. While Raustiala and Sprigman don't get into it, it would seem like this creates another "pure" market to study, to see what happens in a brand-based market without trademark protections. Is copying of brand names common? Do less potent forms of pot try to draft off of more famous brands? Or does the market have a way of working itself out? It seems like a worthwhile market to study for someone enterprising.

Update: By the way, if you find this interesting, Raustiala and Sprigman's new book, The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation is now available for pre-order...

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Anti-Medical Marijuana Committee Fails To Register Published URL, Hilarity Ensues

Can You Trademark Your Pot?