UPDATE: Stash Tea issues response Friday afternoon.

Starting this week, Stash Pot Shop of Seattle is Lux Pot Shop of Seattle.

Why? Legal threats from Stash Tea Co. of Tigard prompted the Washington recreational marijuana retailer to make the switch.

Because while the word is used to describe a quantity of marijuana for personal use, it's also been used in the tea company's name since its founding in 1972.

The co-owner of the former Stash Pot Shop knows he is not alone in facing reprisal from Stash Tea, which started in Portland. Stash Tea in April sued Stash Cannabis Co. of Beaverton, accusing it of infringing on the specialty tea company's trademark. And, given the prevalence of the word Stash in similar cannabis shop's names and the growing number of states that have legalized recreational marijuana sales, Stash Tea's legal team figures to be very busy, says Lux co-founder Kc Franks and others.

"Stash is a name that is extremely prevalent in marijuana culture," said Franks, which is why it was part of the company name at Stash Pot Shop's founding in August 2015. "It's a slang term in the lexicon used in the 1960s."

Two months after its founding, however, Franks received a disturbing letter.

Chernoff Vilhauer of Portland, the intellectual property counsel for Stash Tea, told Franks the Oregon-based company had trademark registrations for Stash in the U.S., Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.

"Stash Tea has established substantial goodwill in the Stash mark and the mark and the registrations are valuable corporate assets," said the two-page Oct. 19, 2015, letter. "It is within our client's rights to demand that the Seattle marijuana dispensaries immediately cease any and all uses of Stash and any other names or marks confusingly similar to the registered Stash trademark."

The letter urged Franks or his legal counsel to contact Stash "to discuss a reasonable phase out period" so that "Stash Tea does not need to pursue legal remedies to enforce its Stash trademark."

In retrospect, Franks said he'd heard of Stash Tea when he chose the original name for his shops in the Seattle neighborhoods of Ballard and Northgate.

"I did not feel we were functioning in the same space as them," he said.

He liked his company's original name, but he said it wasn't a hard decision to acquiesce to Stash Tea's demand.

"We're a small industry," he said. "When you're a young industry and you don't have the protections of the federal government and you're in a state where you have to prove the legitimacy of your industry to the general public ... it sets the stage for larger, established companies to bully us. There's not much we can do."

Representatives for Chernoff Vilhauer and Stash Tea did not respond to requests for comment. Stash Tea's founders sold the company in 1993 for an undisclosed amount to Yamamotoyama, a three-century-old Japanese tea company.

UPDATE -- Stash Tea sent an emailed response Friday afternoon: Stash Tea is a leading specialty tea company with roots in the Pacific Northwest that reach back to the early 1970s. Stash Tea respects small businesses and the intellectual property of others, and expects others in the business community to do the same. Stash Tea will vigorously protect its well-known brand name and identity, which has been trademarked for over 40 years. Stash Tea is confident in the merits of its claims in response to recent infringement of its intellectual property.

The recreational use of marijuana has been approved in Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska. With voter approval last November, that list will soon include Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada and California. The District of Columbia voted to decriminalize its use.

The word Stash is used in several cannabis retailers in those states, said Amy Margolis, a Portland attorney who specializes in cannabis law for national law firm Greenspoon Marder.

"It's an extremely common vernacular in the cannabis world," Margolis said.

Of Stash Tea, she said, "They could indefinitely be fighting with brand after brand."

Franks said he has heard that Stash Tea's representatives contacted other shops like his own, but the trademark issue has been elevated to only one known lawsuit.

In April in federal court in Portland, Stash Tea filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Stash Cannabis Co., 9952 S.W. Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, in Beaverton. Stash Tea requested a jury trial. A Jan. 30, 2018 trial date has been set before federal Judge Marco A. Hernandez.

Chris Matthews, who founded Stash Cannabis Co. in September 2015, declined to comment for this story.

Matthews' attorney, John Mansfield, who also declined to comment, filed a reply in September contending the two company's trademarks are not similar, their products aren't related and their products are offered through different marketing channels.

Franks, the Seattle retailer, said he chose the new name Lux because of its relation to the lighting used to grow marijuana. He figures he spent "easily over $100,000" on expenses to change the shop name.

In addition to legal expenses, "when you're a shop like this in this emerging market, you have a ton of collateral materials," he said, such as marketing materials, employee clothing and branded hats and T-shirts. The Stash Pot Shop embedded in a store's concrete also needs to be removed.

"Stash was a good name," he said. "It did a really good job. ... Letting go of the Stash name was not an easy decision for us."

--Allan Brettman

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman