Actress Jessica Alba is suing a Colorado business that makes CBD nutritional supplements, claiming that Honest Herbal infringes on the trademark of her Los Angeles firm, The Honest Co., which makes personal-care products and vitamins.
Alba argues in the federal lawsuit filed in California that the 3-year-old CBD company is trying “to confuse consumers and profit from the goodwill and consumer recognition associated with The Honest Co.’s HONEST Marks,” which include product lines Honest Beauty, Honest Man and Honest Baby.
“We intend to defend the right of a company to describe their goods as honest,” said Aaron Bradford, a Denver attorney who specializes in intellectual property rights.
The case, first reported by TMZ, underlies the struggles that cannabis companies have defending trademarks. Though Honest Herbal’s CBD products are derived from hemp, not marijuana, the hemp industry is in a legal gray area.
Hemp is legal to grow in Colorado, and Redmon is a licensed hemp grower. But the federal law allowing hemp production doesn’t expressly extend property rights to those growers.
So the Alba case could prove an important test of hemp producers’ ability to trademark and market the products derived from their crops.
