Debra Borchardt
Edible Arrangements may have had a change of heart with regard to suing Green Thumb Industries (OTC: GTBIF) over the use of the name “Incredibles,” but GTI will still need to pay its own legal bill after the judge denied the company’s request that Edible Arrangements pay the tab.
Background
Edible Arrangements franchises stores to sell fruit baskets and arrangements made of cut fruit and other goodies, as well as chocolate and snack products. According to the case, Edible also obtained federally registered trademarks for “Edible Arrangements” and “Edible.” It sought trademark protection for various other related marks, including “Edible Treats,” “Incredible Edible(s),” and “Incredible.”
In December 2018, Edible decided to expand its product offerings to include edible CBD under the “Incredible Edibles” brand and sought additional trademark protection for use of “Incredible Edibles” not only for fruit arrangements but also for dietary and nutritional supplements.
As it turned out, these CBD products didn’t sell that well.
“Edible’s rollout of its CBD products has not been smooth or particularly successful, with only $23,587.89 of the $1,459,888.290.01 in Edible’s total U.S. sales from 2019 through 2021 coming from CBD products,” the latest court document said. “Edible stores no longer sell Incredible Edibles, with Edible instead choosing to sell them mainly online.”
GTI began selling its cannabis-infused edible products using the name Incredibles in 2010. When it tried to patent the brand name, the company found out about the Edible company’s attempt to patent a similar name and decided to wait and see what happened with the patent office.
Edible decided to sue GTI in 2020 over the use of the name; GTI countersued claiming the word edible was a generic term.
After discovery, the parties agreed to dismiss their claims.
Legal Bill
After the voluntary dismissal, GTI argued that Edible should be responsible for all the legal bills, but U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis disagreed. She stated in her opinion that fees can be awarded in exceptional cases, but she didn’t consider this case to fit that description.
The judge also argued that because GTI sought to get patent protection on its name, that undermined the argument that Edible was being unreasonable in filing its complaint.
The opinion from the judge didn’t state how much the legal bills were but did ask Edibles to respond to GTI’s bill by October 20.
1727000-1727514-https-ecf-ilnd-uscourts-gov-doc1-067129315782
