High Times Sues Over Cannabis Cup Brand

Just 74 miles north of Seattle lies the seaside town of Bow, home to this weekend's NW Harvest Fest. Also this weekend in Seattle is the High Times Cannabis Cup. So you can say there's lot for a stoner to do if he or she lives in Washington this weekend. Add to that Hempstalk in Portland, right on the Washington-Oregon border, and that pretty much makes the Pacific Northwest the place to be this coming weekend.

The only problem is the Cannabis Cup - NW Harvest Fest's Cannabis Cup, that is. They've been collecting entries for at a least a month that will be awarded on Saturday under the heading "Cannabis Cup." High Times doesn't like that. After all, they own the trademark for Cannabis Cup, which was founded by High Times editor Steven Hager in 1988. What was for years solely based in Amsterdam, the Cannabis Cup has come home and now regularly makes stops in San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles and Seattle.

In its suit, Trans High Corp., High Times' parent company, claims: "Defendants have willfully infringed those marks by adopting the identical name 'Cannabis Cup' to promote their cannabis-themed event."

Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom

Publisher of CelebStoner.com, former editor of High Times and Freedom Leaf and co-author of Pot Culture and Reefer Movie Madness.