MADISON, WI USA (June 15, 2023) ATAI Life Sciences has today received a non-final rejection from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for U.S. Pat. App. Ser. No. 17/941,648 entitled “Ibogaine Combination Treatment”. On May 4, 2023 Porta Sophia filed a third-party preissuance submission that challenged the patentability of the application's claims 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 application: ibogaine co-administration with a metabolism inhibitor for safer therapies
The ’648 application was filed on September 9, 2022 and claims priority to a provisional application filed on September 10, 2021. This application describes the administration of ibogaine along with a drug that prevents ibogaine metabolism, including CYP2D6 inhibitors or inactivators, to minimize the generation of noribogaine and increase systemic circulation of ibogaine. In addition to drug combinations, dose and dose regimen are also claimed.
In the USPTO’s notice of non-final rejection, all 29 claims of the application are rejected. In the case of 16 claims, the examiner cited prior art presented in Porta Sophia’s third-party preissuance submission as grounds for rejecting those claims. Specifically mentioned was a peer reviewed scientific manuscript published in 2015 that the examiner called “the epitome of obviousness” in the notice of non-final rejection. The curated reference is available in the Porta Sophia psychedelic prior art library.
Read the Porta Sophia third-party preissuance submission full claims chart and corresponding prior art available here.
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.
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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.