Klutch Cannabis Fights a Federal Suit Over Its Name

Klutch Sports Group sued Akron cannabis operator ATCPC of Ohio, doing business as Klutch Cannabis, in federal court on March 16, 2026. The agency asked the court to bar the Klutch name and branding and to award damages.

The filing followed Ohio’s adult-use launch and a Klutch Cannabis store in downtown Cleveland, where Rich Paul founded the agency in 2012.

A Federal Case Lands in the Northern District of Ohio

The case is Klutch Sports Group, LLC v. ATCPC of Ohio, LLC, No. 5:2026cv00618, assigned to Judge J. Philip Calabrese. The agency demanded a jury. The complaint filed in federal court lists trademark infringement, unfair competition, counterfeiting, and related Ohio claims.

Klutch Sports is a Delaware company with its principal office at 9336 Civic Center Drive in Beverly Hills. It still claims a live Ohio presence. The defendant is an Ohio company at 1 Thomarios Way in Copley, operating as Klutch Cannabis.

Paul, a Cleveland native, founded the agency in 2012. One of its first clients was LeBron James, who was born in Akron and won a 2016 title with the Cavaliers. The complaint treats that hometown map as part of the brand. It says the cannabis company later took the Klutch name, a near match in logo and colors, “in an obvious and willful effort to profit from and divert the brand equity that Klutch Sports has built in the very same marketplace.”

Long after Klutch Sports was formed in Cleveland in 2012, an Ohio Cannabis company branded itself “Klutch Cannabis” using a nearly identical logo and colors in an obvious and willful effort to profit from and divert the brand equity that Klutch Sports has built in the very same marketplace.

Klutch Sports Group complaint, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio

The agency wants a permanent stop on the name and money for harm already done. Pete Nischt, vice president for compliance and communication at Klutch Cannabis, said on March 18, 2026, that the company had not yet been served and that he could not comment on the case. A waiver of service went out that day, with an answer due May 18, 2026.

The Clothing Line Is the Legal Tripwire

The 2020 grow name is the headline. The tighter legal problem is apparel. Klutch Sports holds a registered KLUTCH SPORTS GROUP mark for management of professional athletes, U.S. Registration No. 5,399,022, filed July 8, 2016, and registered February 13, 2018. That registration is incontestable, a status that blocks most attacks on whether the mark is valid.

It also holds U.S. Registration No. 6,343,533 for KLUTCH on hats, t-shirts, hoodies, pants, shirts, jackets, sweatpants, track pants, and shorts. That application was filed May 7, 2020. First use is listed as September 25, 2020. The mark registered May 4, 2021. Klutch Athletics, a line with New Balance, puts that clothing in national retail.

ATCPC of Ohio filed a KLUTCH CANNABIS application, serial no. 88983886, on May 18, 2020, eleven days after the sports agency’s clothing filing. The complaint says the cannabis company sells flower, accessories, and branded apparel, including T-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats, under the Klutch name and logo. Counterfeiting, as pleaded, is about those clothes, not the jars.

THE TWO KLUTCH FILINGS AT THE USPTO

A sports agency mark for athlete management does not, by itself, lock up every use of a slang spelling. A registered KLUTCH line of hoodies does put both companies in the same goods class. That is why the merch table at a dispensary matters more here than the strain list.

The Cleveland Storefront Brought the First Letters

Klutch Cannabis spent years as an Ohio medical cultivator and processor before it became a shop people walked into off the street. Voters passed Issue 2 in November 2023. State officials then started adult-use cannabis sales on August 6, 2024, through dual-use licenses at existing dispensaries.

The complaint says Klutch Cannabis was operating brick-and-mortar stores across Ohio by August 2025, including in Cleveland, the city where the agency was born. That is also when Paul visited the downtown Cleveland shop. A customer recognized him and said he planned to buy a Klutch Cannabis sweatshirt, under the impression it was tied to Paul.

Klutch Sports sent cease-and-desist letters from August 7, 2025, through January 2026, demanding a rebrand. The complaint says the cannabis company changed counsel three times in that stretch and still did not drop the name. The lawsuit followed on March 16, 2026.

FROM ADULT-USE SALES TO FEDERAL COURT

1. August 6, 2024: Ohio begins adult-use sales at licensed dispensaries.
2. August 2025: Klutch Cannabis is operating a Cleveland store; Paul visits and hears the sweatshirt pitch.
3. August 7, 2025: The first cease-and-desist letter goes out, with more letters through January 2026.
4. March 16, 2026: Klutch Sports files the Northern District complaint.
5. May 2026: Klutch Cannabis files a 111-page response denying infringement.

Close logos help a plaintiff. So does a store in the agency’s hometown, a founder standing in the aisle, and a hoodie that looks like team gear. Flower on a medical menu in 2020 did not give the agency that record. Adult-use retail did.

How Klutch Cannabis Grew Under That Name

On July 8, 2020, AT-CPC of Ohio announced it had split from Calyx Peak Companies and rebrands under the name Klutch Cannabis. The company said it was founded in April 2020 in Akron and was then wholly owned and run in Ohio. Adam Thomarios is the founder and chief executive.

The public site still calls it a 100 percent Ohio-owned and operated cannabis company and uses the line “Grown in Akron.” A crown, the company says, stands for honor, not dominance. Black and gold run through the stores and the packs. That palette is also the one the sports agency has used since Cleveland.

Nischt told an Ohio House panel on March 24, 2022, that Klutch was a Level 1 cultivation and processing plant in Akron that employed over 140 Ohioans. He also served as co-chair of the Ohio Medical Cannabis Industry Association’s policy committee. Retail came later. Early shops used the name The Citizen in Lorain and Canton before the Klutch name moved onto the doors.

WHAT THE AKRON COMPANY BUILT ON THE NAME

• The grow: A Level 1 cultivator and processor based in Akron, announced as Ohio-owned after the 2020 split from Calyx Peak.
• The shops: A retail chain that, by May 2026, ran six Ohio dispensaries, including a downtown Cleveland store.
• The merch: Branded apparel sold under the Klutch name, the goods that overlap the agency’s clothing registration.
• The next store: On August 13, 2026, the company still billed a move of its Tallmadge express shop to 1960 West Market Street in Akron as a Klutch Cannabis flagship.

Eight years separate the agency’s 2012 launch from the cannabis company’s 2020 name. That gap is real. So is the five-year stretch in which the grower used Klutch in Ohio before the first letter arrived. The suit treats that stretch as bad-faith free riding. The company’s own record treats it as a local brand that scaled when the state opened the door.

The Dispensary Chain Wants the Mark Canceled

In May 2026, Klutch Cannabis filed a 111-page response. Lawyers for the company denied that the branding was an effort to siphon the agency’s goodwill. They said the two businesses are too far apart for the kind of mix-up trademark law punishes.

There is no likelihood of confusion between the parties’ respective marks, goods, services or channels of trade.

Lawyers for Klutch Cannabis, May 2026 response in the Northern District of Ohio

They added that the parties sell “fundamentally different goods and services,” through “entirely different channels of trade,” aimed at “distinct consumer populations,” in “separate and unrelated industries.” The filing also points to a crowded field of Clutch-spelled names that, the cannabis lawyers say, Klutch Sports already knew about when it filed more marks in 2022.

Counsel for the sports agency has described the cannabis company’s counterclaims as a bid to cancel the Klutch trademarks. That is a hard swing. Registration No. 5,399,022 is incontestable, which is built to survive most validity attacks. The clothing registration is younger. Both sides declined to comment when asked in May 2026.

The defense theory is simple to say and expensive to try. Weed and athlete management are different trades. Hoodies are not. If the judge treats dispensary merch as the same goods as Klutch Athletics, the “different channels” line gets thinner. If the judge treats a Cleveland cannabis shop as a world apart from a Beverly Hills agency, the 2020 name may hold.

A Sweatshirt in Cleveland Became Exhibit A

Trademark plaintiffs win more easily with real mix-ups than with side-by-side logo boards. The complaint collects several. A commenter on a story about a Klutch Cannabis opening asked whether the shop was tied to Klutch Sports Group. People called agency staff and executives under the belief that the agency owned the cannabis company. The complaint also says at least one Klutch Cannabis employee told someone there was a connection.

The Paul visit is the scene the filing wants a jury to see. The agency’s founder walks into a Cleveland Klutch store. A customer wants the sweatshirt because he thinks it belongs to Paul. That is not a Twitter joke. It is a named person, in the hometown, reaching for the overlapping good.

Shoppers in Ohio already talk about the two names as if they were one file. That fusion is the agency’s best fact. It is also why a rumor that the dispensary “had to change its name” moved in July 2026 even though the company’s own pages still used Klutch Cannabis on the West Market plan in August. Close logos do not end this case. The hoodies and the Cleveland door might.

The complaint cites a 2025 ranking that placed Klutch Sports fifth among U.S. sports agencies, with $351 million in maximum commissions. It also notes a 2019 partnership with United Talent Agency that spread the firm through Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Nashville, and London. That is the brand the agency says an Akron operator cannot borrow. The operator says it never borrowed it, because it sells cannabis in Ohio shops, not athlete contracts.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The docket: The March 16, 2026 complaint is pending before Judge Calabrese, and Klutch Cannabis answered in May 2026.
• The name on the door: As of the August 13, 2026 Akron store announcement, the company was still using Klutch Cannabis in public.
• The overlap: Both sides sell Klutch-branded apparel; only the agency holds the federal clothing registration.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Any injunction: No public order in the record reviewed here bars the cannabis company from using the name while the case proceeds.
• Damages: The complaint seeks money but does not fix a public dollar figure.
• Later docket steps: Filings after the May 2026 response were not in the public summaries reviewed for this article.

The West Market flagship is still drawn as a Klutch store in Akron, on the same streets that made both brands feel local. Until Judge Calabrese says otherwise, that is the name on the plan, and the federal file is the bill for putting it there.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of a pending federal trademark case. It is for information only and is not legal advice, a prediction of how the court will rule, or a guide to naming, branding, or licensing a cannabis business. Readers who face a trademark claim, a cease-and-desist letter, or a branding decision should consult a licensed attorney who practices intellectual property and cannabis law in the relevant state. Dates, docket events, and trademark statuses reflect the court papers and public records cited here and may change as the case moves.