By Natalie S. Rizkalla-Kamel, Monique M. Couture

With the legalization of recreational cannabis set for October 17, 2018, cannabis companies are flooding the Canadian trademarks register with an array of new trademark applications.

In 2018 alone, over 1700 trademark applications were filed in the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) in association with goods and services containing the word “cannabis” and/or “marijuana”. This dwarfs the 847 such applications filed in 2017.