Lawyers love language. Transactional attorneys take great pride in drafting documents with precision, each word carefully chosen as a vehicle to convey specific concepts and leave little room for disagreement. Litigators, on the other hand, often have a more fluid relationship with language. When the lawsuits fly for breach of contract, false advertising, or patent infringement, that crystal clear language is suddenly a bit cloudier.

I’ve practiced mostly in the latter camp, so my perception of language is that words are almost always more ambiguous than they first appear. One of the first patent infringement cases I ever worked involved what it means for one vacuum part to be mounted “on” another part. That case and nearly every subsequent patent litigation taught me that it is one thing to know what a word means, but quite another to prove what the word meant in a particular context.

It is not that it is difficult to find a definition for the words—there are literally hundreds of definitions for “on”—or that the various definitions are inconsistent. The greatest difficulty usually lies in the nuances at the fringes that rely on customs, history, relationships, and other context that we often process subconsciously. These subtle nuances can lead to significant differences between the black-and-white definition and the actual use in practice.

When it comes time to prove how words are used in practice, particularly in commercial practice, some of the strongest evidence of usage can come from industry associations. Trade associations are generally comprised of current practitioners and are therefore reasonable representations of the industry. So when I joined the NCIA’s Cannabis Manufacturing Committee in 2019, I suggested that we publish and maintain a glossary of manufacturing terminology. I’ve previewed this project before, but I’m excited to announce that we’ve finally published the initial glossary draft.

I have quite a bit more to say on this topic—particularly my observations on challenges to nomenclature standardization—but I’ll let our post on the NCIA’s blog finish the introduction:

NCIA’s Cannabis Manufacturing Committee Glossary

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