Not those Terps: UMD threatens legal action against cannabis product company over name

When Ken Fry worked with a designer to create a logo for this company, he had a few requests.

He wanted something red, to evoke successful brands like Coca-Cola. And he wanted a vintage-style font, to project long-standing credibility. Fry’s company, Terps USA, sells terpene spray used to enhance the flavor and aroma of cannabis products, and he wanted to make sure the logo looked classic and trusted.

But this summer, that logo came under fire from a better-known Terps brand.

The University of Maryland, College Park, sent Terps USA a cease-and-desist letter this summer demanding Fry abandon the logo design, rename his company and give up his trademark, which was approved in 2021. In the letter, lawyers for UMD said Terps USA “dilutes the value” of the nickname that college sports fans use for the Maryland Terrapins.

“We’ve been doing business for seven years,” Fry said. “I put my blood, sweat, and a couple times, my tears, into this company. We’re not stopping this.”

He said Terps USA had redesigned its logo to be green and gold, rather than red, as part of an ordinary brand reset and before the university sent out the cease-and-desist letter. Now he’s anticipating thousands of dollars in legal bills in what he calls a “David vs. Goliath” fight.

Fry’s business, based in Colorado, sells terpenes, naturally occurring compounds commonly found in plants. While they don’t contain cannabis, terpenes interact with marijuana to create an “entourage effect” with THC, the substance that makes users feel high, Fry said.

Customers typically use his terpenes to make “vape juice,” or the liquid that goes into a weed pen, Fry said.

Terps USA received the cease-and-desist letter from Maryland’s flagship university in July. In the letter, Janet Benson Forville, the university’s senior associate general counsel, wrote that UMD officials are “concerned that consumers may incorrectly believe that the university has licensed, sponsored, endorsed or is otherwise affiliated with cannabis-related products or services.”

She added that “such an association would materially impair the goodwill embodied” in the university’s Terps trademark.

But Fry has decided to fight the claim.

In a letter, E. Milo Schwab, who represents Terps USA, said that the company has seen “no instance in more than seven years in which any person has been confused about a connection between Terps USA and the university.”

The university has held and lost several trademarks having to do with “Terps,” according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records. The University of Maryland filed a Terps trademark application in 1991 but abandoned it in 1993 because “the applicant failed to respond or filed a late response to an office action.”

Schwab wrote in his letter to the university that from March 2023 to January 2026, UMD held no federal registration for the word Terps.

In 2026, the university filed a new “TERPS” application with the Patent and Trademark Office.

Rebecca Aloisi, senior director of communications at the university, did not respond to questions about the status of UMD’s Terps trademark.

Fry said he is open to discussions with the university about a solution. After all, he acknowledged, he doesn’t have the same financial resources as a public flagship university.

“I’d much rather be solution-oriented than live in the land of ultimatums,” he said. “Maybe we get through this financially, maybe we don’t. But I think we have a good case.”

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