TTAB Won’t Register A “Trimming Machine” For Pot

The agricultural machine, used “for trimming leaves, plants, flowers and buds” of cannabis, was deemed not eligible for a trademark on the grounds that it’s illegal drug paraphernalia under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Therefore the designation ULTRA TRIMMER will have to survive, if it is to survive, unregistered. The applicant, as this post from Wolf Greenfield & Sacks attorney John L. Welch notes, “did not dispute that its goods are used to trim marijuana buds.” The applicant did, however, come up with a number of arguments for why it should be able to register its mark anyway, one of them invoking the Lanham Act, another invoking the DOJ’s own “Cole Memo – which the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board contended was only a guide to investigative and prosecutorial discretion and lacked the force of law.