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During the 2025 legislative session, Washington State enacted several new measures that will significantly impact employer obligations related to hiring practices and personnel recordkeeping.

As we discussed in a previous blog post, the Washington State minimum wage increased to $16.66 per hour on January 1, 2025. This new state wage also impacts the salary levels for the white-collar exemptions from the minimum wage. In a separate blog post, we also discussed the minimum wages in multiple jurisdictions within Washington that exceed the Washington State minimum wage, and which also increase each year to account for inflation, including Bellingham, Renton, SeaTac, Seattle, Tukwila, and unincorporated King County. These updates continue as Burien voters recently approved a ballot measure to align Burien’s minimum wage ordinance with Tukwila’s ordinance, and Everett joined the jurisdictions increasing their minimum wage to exceed Washington State’s minimum wage.

Increased globalism brings with it a need to re-examine and clarify the territorial limitations traditionally applied to trademark rights. Should U.S. users of foreign trademarks and foreign users of U.S. trademarks be subject to the provisions and remedies of the Lanham Act irrespective of where sales—and damages—occur?

Although Washington decriminalized recreational use of cannabis in 2012, employers in Washington have been free to deny employment on the basis of any evidence of cannabis use, including pre-hire drug testing, and even if cannabis use was for medicin...

Delfina Homen, intellectual property and cannabis attorney, will present as part of a Strafford CLE panel, “Trademark Licensing in the Cannabis Industry: Legality, Disclosure, Diligence, and Key Provisions,” on Tuesday, March 28 at 10:00 a.m.&nb...

The newly released Examination Guide for trademark examiners at the US Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) entitled “Examination of Marks for Cannabis and Cannabis-Related Goods and Services after Enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill” clarifies tha...

Although commercial use of a trademark alone triggers rights in a mark, wise business owners endeavor to take advantage of the added benefits and protections conveyed by federal registration. One of the most important benefits of federal trademark re...

By Danielle Hunt, Kalin Bornemann, Olivia Grabacki, and Jessica Roberts As we previously discussed, financial institutions that offer financial services to the cannabis industry have been operating in a state of uncertainty in the wake of the rescis...