Rachael Dickson

Founder and Visiting Assistant Professor

Catalytic Law and Suffolk University Law School

Rachael Dickson is a trademark attorney with expertise in acquiring federal trademark registrations for cannabis and hemp companies at the USPTO. She regularly advises other trademark attorneys on their applications and searching trademarks using USPTO's TESS (Trademark Electronic Searching System) tool. 

From 2017-2021, Rachael was a trademark examining attorney at the US Patent and Trademark Office, where she specialized in examining cannabis trademarks as part of a select controlled substance work group. In this role, she was awarded a 2020 USPTO Customer Service Award and managed to win a TTAB case for the USPTO in abstentia (In Re Harbor Hemp Company LLC, 2022). Rachael has spoken on cannabis trademark issues on several occasions, most notably as a solo speaker at MJBizCon 2022 ("The NewlyWeed Game: Who Wants a Cannabis Trademark?") and at the Suffolk Law Intellectual Property Conference in 2022 ("High Hopes: Cannabis Trademarks at the USPTO"). 

Rachael is also a visiting assistant professor at Suffolk University Law School, where she runs the Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship Clinic. She is currently working on an article on the lawful use requirement in trademark law which compares the USPTO's current treatment of applications to register cannabis trademarks with the US Patent Office's treatment of applications to register alcohol trademarks during Prohibition (1920-1934). 

Rachael formerly served as contract counsel with PharmaCann in Illinois, where she wrote state license applications for expansion to other states, trained dispensary, cultivation, and security employees on applicable regulations, worked with state agency officials, and performed a million other cannabis business start up tasks (including trimming buds for a few days alongside the founders!). (2015-2016)

Rachael is also a history aficionado who has spoken at TudorCon on three separate occasions (mostly about historical intellectual property). She can be found talking about trademarks, history, and cats primarily on Twitter, but also on Instagram, TikTok, and as of 07/2023, BlueSky and Threads, all under the screen name TudorsandTMs.

Rachael holds a degree in history and minors in electronic journalism and music from George Mason University (2010, cum laude) and a JD and certificate in Cyberlaw from DePaul University Law School (2015, cum laude). She is licensed in Illinois, Washington, DC, and (very soon!) Massachusetts.