All-around celebrity and America’s cannabis-friendly ambassador to the world, Snoop Dogg may be one of the most recognizable faces – and brands – in the country.
In fact, his impact on cannabis and culture at large is so profound that “Smoke Weed Everyday,” a phrase he’s made popular over the past 25 years, is too well-known to trademark, the U.S. Patent Office informed an attorney for Snoop’s company on March 10.
But while Snoop may still have trouble securing copyright protections for this particular phrase, he and other entrepreneurs in the legal marijuana industry have options when seeking brand protections, according to legal experts.
Why the feds rejected Snoop Dogg’s cannabis trademark application
“Smoke Weed Every Day” is a line from “The Next Episode,” a cut from Dr. Dre’s 1999 release The Chronic 2001 on which Snoop appears (though for the record, he doesn’t sing it; Nate Dogg does.)
In a patent application filed in March 2024, Snoop sought, using his birth name Calvin Broadus, trademark protections to use “Smoke Weed Everyday” for “(w)holesale, retail, and online retail store services featuring cannabis and cannabis products containing ingredients solely derived from hemp,” according to records.
The hemp trick might have been intended to avoid trademark restrictions that apply to cannabis, which remains a Schedule 1 drug despite President Donald Trump’s Dec. 18 executive order directing marijuana to be downgraded under federal law.
But federal restrictions also apply to THC and other cannabinoids extracted from hemp.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not declared these compounds safe to add to food, even under the auspices of the 2018 Farm Bill. And Snoop’s application also mentioned hemp-related edibles and other products.
On March 10, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office informed patent attorney Kristen Ruisi that the application would be rejected.
That’s because “Smoke Weed Everyday” is too popular a phrase – and on top of that, federal law doesn’t allow for hemp-derived cannabinoids to be legally added to food, the USPTO wrote.
Why ‘Smoke Weed Everyday’ can’t be trademarked
“In this case, the applied-for mark is an informational social, political, religious, or similar kind of message that merely conveys support of, admiration for, or affiliation with the ideals conveyed by the message,” the office wrote, justifying its rejection on the grounds of popularity.
“Terms and phrases that merely convey an informational message are not registrable.”
But the hemp issue is also a nonstarter.
“Registration is refused because the applied-for mark is not in lawful use in commerce, or the applicant lacks a bona fide intent to use the mark in lawful commerce,” the USPTO added. “In this case, the application includes items or activities that involve a per se violation of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”
It remains to be seen what Snoop’s next move might be.
Other cannabis companies have sought patent protections in a variety of ways. One popular method is trademarking clothing rather than cannabis products.
That’s a tactic used by both prominent cannabis Cookies for its intellectual property as well as Chicago-based marijuana multistate operator Green Thumb Industries to secure protections for its Dogwalkers brand of prerolls, USPTO records show.
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How Snoop and other cannabis companies can seek trademark protections
But “(o)ne way Snoop Dogg’s legal team could respond is by amending the application to limit the goods or services to products that are lawful under federal law, such as certain hemp-derived CBD products that comply with the 2018 Farm Bill,” intellectual property attorney Josh Gerben wrote in a blog post.
“Without narrowing the scope of the application, the USPTO simply cannot issue the registration until Federal Law changes,” he added.
More problematic might be the phrase itself. Patent attorneys could argue that it’s Snoop’s celebrity that catapulted “Smoke Weed Everyday” into the zeitgeist, Gerben wrote.
This “acquired distinctiveness” means that consumers directly associate the phrase with him specifically, Gerben wrote.
But the problem is that this phrase, unlike others that perhaps aren’t in wide use, is too popular. As the USPTO pointed out in its rejection letter, the term appears on a slew of products, including clothing and accessories.
“In other words, the very popularity that made the ‘Smoke Weed Everyday’ phrase famous may also make it harder to protect as a trademark today,” Gerben wrote.
