HBI Innovations (HBI), the company that owns Raw rolling papers, issued a statement about a ruling in favor of HBI in its court battle against Republic Tobacco. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected Republic Tobacco's attempt to overturn the June 2021 jury verdict finding that Republic/OCB illegally copied the trade-dress packaging design HBI uses for its RAW Organic Hemp rolling paper products and infringed the copyright-protected design of RAW advertising.
In the April 25 ruling, the court affirmed the jury's verdict that Republic willfully copied RAW's trade dress and ad design for its OCB Organic Hemp products.
By rejecting Republic's attempt to escape liability for using HBI's RAW trade-dress packaging design for Republic's .99 OCB Organic Hemp product packaging by simply using a different brand name, HBI has proven that authenticity and innovation can't be stolen with a letter-swap - even by Mega Tobacco.
"As we've said in the past, our industry benefits when people in this space are truly familiar with the products and consumers' preferences," said Josh Kesselman, founder and president of HBI. "We hope this ruling helps Republic accept that its litigation assault was a waste of time and money. True innovation benefits everyone. We can all do better by helping those industry pioneers who are struggling to compete in the legal marketplace."
Kesselman noted that all of the net award proceeds were donated through the RAW Giving initiative to various charitable groups from social justice organizations to animal rescues with a goal of helping uplift people that were negatively impacted by cannabis laws.
