MADISON, WI USA (August 30, 2024) Two Turtle Bear Holdings applications have, as of today, received non-final rejections from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for U.S. Pat. App. Ser. Nos. 18/531,052 and 18/531,407 – both entitled “TRYPTAMINE COMPOSITIONS FOR ENHANCING NEURITE OUTGROWTH”. On May 3, 2024 Porta Sophia filed a third-party preissuance submission that challenged the patentability of the claims of both applications on the grounds that the claims lack novelty and are obvious to someone skilled in the art.
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 readily available relevant historical documentation for patent examiners, innovators, and the public alike to explore the scope of psychedelic technologies.
Patent applications: psilocybin microdosing
The ’052 and ’407 applications were both filed on 6 December 2023, shortly after a family member application (17/308,869) was given a notice of allowance on 17 November 2023.
The ’869 patent application was officially granted on 13 February 2024 as U.S. patent 11,896,587. This patent is a current and continuing high threat to the psychedelic community because it provides the patent owner, Turtle Bear Holdings, exclusive rights to microdosing psilocybin and/or psilocin at doses of 1mg to 10mg taken one to six times per day to treat or ameliorate the symptoms of numerous neuropsychiatric disorders. Given how broadly the claims are worded, this patent allow the applicant to have significant control over low dose psilocybin administration – which has been established in the public domain for decades.
The claims of the ’052 and ’407 applications are highly similar to the granted claims of the ’587 patent yet are even broader than the ’587 patent. Therefore, these applications also pose a significant threat to the public domain if granted.
At the time of Porta Sophia’s submissions of prior art against ’052 and ’407, both applications already received office actions relating to the patentability of the claims, and rejections made in those actions utilized the same prior art references used in the examination of the ’587 patent. The rejections made in the ’052 and ‘407 office actions relating to novelty and obviousness were successfully overturned by the applicant. Given this and the fact that the ’052 and ’407 applications had the same examiner as the ’587 patent, Porta Sophia determined intervention was necessary and submitted prior art that further established that the claims of both applications lacked novelty and were obvious to someone skilled in the art. Prior art in these third-party preissuance submissions included publications from peer reviewed journals, international patent documents, blog posts, and news articles. This prior art anticipates claims in the ’052 and ‘407 applications. The full third-party submission documentation is available here and the curated references are available in the Porta Sophia psychedelic prior art library.
In the USPTO’s non-final rejections against ’052 and ‘407, filed 28 August 2024 and 30 August 2024 respectively, the examiner cites prior art submitted by Porta Sophia to reject all 18 claims of each application on the grounds that the claims are anticipated by or are obvious to someone skilled in the art. Importantly, this critical piece of prior art was neither disclosed by the applicant nor surfaced by the examiner in the examination of the ’869 patent application that subsequently became the ’587 patent.
Third-party submissions of prior art
The America Invents Act allows third parties to submit prior art and concise descriptions of their relevance to the USPTO. This ensures that submitted documents will be considered in the examination of associated patent applications. In addition, these submissions have a broad impact because applicants have a duty to disclose the submitted prior art for other relevant patent applications filed by the applicant.
Porta Sophia tracks and analyzes psychedelic patent applications globally. If an application improperly claims innovation of something known in the public domain and meets the standards of Porta Sophia's third-party intervention evaluation criteria, the team assembles evidence against these invalid claims and contests them directly to the relevant patent office through third-party interventions.
Learn about the status and impact of Porta Sophia's third party submissions and observations.
About Porta Sophia
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, Wisconsin 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.
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 learn more about Porta Sophia's patent and prior art workflow or get involved, visit www.portasophia.org.
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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, Wisconsin 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.
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 learn more about Porta Sophia's patent and prior art workflow or get involved, visit www.portasophia.org.