California’s Proposed Modified Cannabis Regulations Could Prohibit Intellectual Property Licensing (!)

On Friday, the California Bureau of Cannabis Control, California Department of Public Health, and California Department of Food and Agriculture issued 15-day notices of modification to the texts of their respective proposed regulations. The California Cannabis Portal has published links to each notice and the modified texts of the proposed regulations. For each set, the respective Department will accept written comments submitted by November 5, 2018.

And to all parties currently engaging in intellectual property (IP) licensing or manufacturing deals as or with a non-licensee, you should most definitely submit your written comments if you want to be able to keep those deals alive. The modifications to the text of the proposed regulations include the following:

5032. Designated M and A Commercial Cannabis Activity

(a) All commercial cannabis activity shall be conducted between licensees. Retail licensees, licensed retailers and licensed microbusinesses authorized to engage in retail sales may conduct commercial cannabis activity with customers in accordance with Chapter 3 of this division.

(b) Licensees shall not conduct commercial cannabis activities on behalf of, at the request of, or pursuant to a contract with any person that is not licensed under the Act. Such prohibited commercial cannabis activities include, but are not limited to, the following:

(1) Procuring or purchasing cannabis goods from a licensed cultivator or licensed manufacturer.

(2) Manufacturing cannabis goods according to the specifications of a non-licensee.

(3) Packaging and labeling cannabis goods under a non-licensee’s brand or according to the specifications of a non-licensee.

(4) Distributing cannabis goods for a non-licensee.

These regulations would seemingly prohibit most, if not all, IP licensing agreements where the licensor is not licensed by the state, given that such licensing deals call for the licensee’s use of the licensed IP to manufacture particular goods, often utilizing the licensor’s proprietary techniques, recipes or trade secrets. Section (b)(3) above describes exactly what a licensee does under a trademark licensing agreement where the licensor does not possess its own manufacturing license from the state: “packaging and labeling cannabis goods under a non-licensee’s brand or according to the specifications of a non-licensee.”

Until today, there was nothing in the proposed regulations prohibiting a non-licensed third-party from engaging in these types of licensing deals, which we have written about extensively. Under those proposed regulations, a non-licensed entity entering into a licensing or manufacturing deal and taking a royalty from a licensed entity would need to be disclosed to the state as a party with a financial interest in a licensee but would not need to obtain a manufacturing license of their own. These kinds of deals are extremely prevalent throughout the industry, and are allowed to varying degrees in the other states in which my law firm’s cannabis business lawyers work (Washington and Oregon). For California to prohibit licensing deals involving non-licensed entities would be a major departure from what we’ve seen in other jurisdictions and would be incredibly disruptive to the cannabis industry as it currently operates.

This change would have far-reaching and unfortunate implications. Here are some examples of deals and structures that would not be allowed if this modification is ultimately adopted:

• Licensed operators that have set up separate IP-holding companies to hold and license their intellectual property back to the operator;
• Out-of-state cannabis companies that wish to license their existing cannabis brand to California manufacturers, but do not wish to directly engage in manufacturing in California;
• Non-licensed third-parties that have developed technology to manufacture a cannabis product or a brand identity and wish to license that technology or brand identity to a licensed manufacturer.

The list goes on. If you have any type of licensing or manufacturing deal in place that involves both a licensed entity and a non-licensed entity, you should talk to your attorney as soon as possible to determine what the implications of this modification would be. And most importantly, you should provide written feedback immediately to the Bureau of Cannabis Control during the very short 15-day comment period expressing opposition to this modification.