MADISON, WI USA (May 25, 2022) Porta Sophia filed a third-party preissuance submission with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today for U.S. Pat. App. Ser. No. 17/480,789 entitled “Compositions and methods for treating depression”, which is currently assigned to Turtle Bear Holdings LLC. The submission consisted of 8 prior art documents that are material to the patentability of all 20 claims of the application.
Porta Sophia, a non-profit psychedelic prior art library, leverages the experience of legal and interdisciplinary academic scholars to promote an ethical psychedelic patenting landscape that preserves the integrity of the public domain. The organization curates and makes relevant historical documentation readily available for anyone wanting to explore the scope of psychedelic technologies, including patent examiners.
Porta Sophia also tracks and analyzes patent applications. If an application improperly claims innovation of something known in the public domain and meets all the standards of Porta Sophia's third party pre-issuance submission evaluation criteria, the team assembles evidence against these invalid claims and contests them directly to the USPTO through third-party preissuance submissions.
The ’789 application was filed on September 21, 2021 and claims priority to a provisional application filed on July 23, 2016. It describes the use psilocybin or psilocin with other compounds to improve neurological health. Compounds the application described that could be used in addition to psilocybin or psilocin include niacin and compounds isolated from plants and other fungi.
Prior art in the third-party preissuance submission included publications from peer reviewed journals, U.S. and international patent documents, and evidence published in public online forums. This prior art addresses overly broad claims, such as the use of an effective amount of psilocybin or psilocin to reduce the symptoms of depression or anxiety.
The America Invents Act allows third parties to submit prior art and concise descriptions of their relevance to the USPTO. This ensures that the documents submitted will be considered in the examination of that patent application. In addition, these submissions have a broad impact because applicants have a duty to disclose the prior art submitted against a single patent application for other relevant patent applications filed by the applicant.
Porta Sophia works to support equity in the psychedelic field. The organization facilitates community engagement through encouraging submissions of prior art from the public and organizing an interdisciplinary Archival Researcher Network (ARN) to ensure quality psychedelic prior art is readily available to patent applicants, examiners, and those interested in psychedelic research.
To get involved or learn more, visit www.portasophia.org.
Porta Sophia, meaning doorway to wisdom, is a non-profit psychedelic prior art library created to support good patents in the field of psychedelics. Based in Madison, WI USA, Porta Sophia identifies scientific, historical and cultural prior art in common and uncommon spaces and brings it together in one simple search tool for innovators and patent reviewers. The organization’s mission is to protect the public domain, stimulate innovation, and support good patents to assure psychedelic therapies can one day be available at scale to the people who need them. To learn more, visit www.portasophia.org.