Kool cigarette maker ITG last week sued cannabis company Capna Intellectual, which does business as Bloom Brands, alleging it violated state and federal trademark law by stealing the cigarette brand’s logo, Law360 reports.
“In a transparent rip-off of ITG’s Kool marks, defendant advertises, promotes, distributes, imports, sells and/or offers for sale electronic cigarettes and oral vaporizers for adult smokers and adult tobacco consumers under the Bloom marks. The Bloom Marks contain interlocking ‘OOs’ which mimic the interlocking ‘OOs’ in ITG’s famous Kool marks.” – ITG in court filings via Law360
ITG said Bloom filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in September 2019 seeking to register the similar mark for e-cigarette and vape sales. The company called Bloom’s acts deliberate “and intentionally carried out in bad faith, or with reckless disregard for or with willful blindness to ITG’s rights in the Kool marks, for the purpose of trading on ITG’s reputation and diluting the Kool marks.”
As the number of states legalizing cannabis has grown, so have trademark lawsuits aimed at businesses and brands. Last November, Ferrera Candy Co. – the makers of Nerds candy – filed a lawsuit against Tops Cannabis for their Medicated Nerds Rope parody product. The “Woodstock” name is the subject of a long running court battle between Woodstock Ventures LLC, which owns the rights to the festival and seeks to use the name to brand cannabis products and Woodstock Roots LLC, which secured trademark registration for the name to sell non-cannabis smokers’ products in 2013.
Other well-known national brands, including Citibank, Gorilla Glue, and Tapatio Foods – makers of the hot sauce – have sued cannabis companies for infringement or demanded that the stop using the moniker.
The ITG Brands LLC v. Capna Intellectual case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
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