Covid Cashout: Cannabis Startups Rush to Grab Coronavirus Trademarks

A global pandemic has created some business opportunities

The Healing Cabinet is a boutique cannabis dispensary supply company based near Santa Cruz. But in the weeks since the novel coronavirus swept across the country, it’s gotten into a different business: hand sanitizer.

THC, as the company is cleverly acronymed, is now selling a product branded as “COVID Killer,” an ethyl alcohol-based disinfectant marketed by a sister company called DHM Group. According to its Instagram page, COVID Killer is now available at Ace Hardware stores in the area.

Whether it remains in local retail or goes national, DHM is determined to protect its brand. Two weeks ago, the company applied for a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, hoping to claim sole ownership of the COVID Killer tagline. And they’re not the only ones who have branding on the mind as the pandemic lingers.

Trademark applications filed with the Patent Office show an explosion in products marketed in some fashion as related to the virus. Nearly 200 applications containing the words “coronavirus” or “COVID” have been filed since March 29, the first time either word appeared in a trademark application, according to USPTO’s online database.

Taken together, the scores of coronavirus-related applications provide a glimpse into a cottage industry of products designed to treat the coronavirus outbreak or marketed as a response to it. The companies seeking to protect their coronavirus-branded products run the gamut from multinational pharmaceutical firms to individuals hawking homemade goods—and, in the case of THC, at least one cannabis industry company that’s hoping to get in on the action.

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