Application Abandoned for Pharma America Holding U.S. Application 17/525,248 Describing MDMA combined with Viagra® for enhanced sexual desire and ability

MADISON, WI USA (June 22, 2023) Pharma America Holding has today abandoned U.S. Pat. App. Ser. No. 17/525,248 entitled “SEXUAL THERAPY FORMULATION AND METHOD OF TREATMENT” after failing to respond to a non-final rejection from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). On July 22, 2022 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: MDMA combined with Viagra® for enhanced sexual desire and ability

The ’248 application was filed on November 12, 2021 and claims priority to a provisional application filed on November 13, 2020. It describes the drug combination of erectile enhancers with libido stimulators for a synergistic effect that allows a patient to engage in and desire sexual activity – such as the combination of the active ingredient in Viagra®, sildenafil citrate, with MDMA, a very well-documented recreational drug combination commonly known as “sextasy”. In addition to drug combinations, dosage is also claimed.

As previously reported by Porta Sophia, in the USPTO’s notice of non-final rejection filed on December 14 2022, all 20 claims were rejected, and the examiner cited prior art included in the third-party preissuance submission as grounds for that action. Specifically mentioned was an Erowid post titled “Foxy Sextasy” detailing both the drug combination and the dosage ranges claimed by the application. As a result, the examiner concluded that “the synergistic properties are inherent in the formulation” claimed in the application, and therefore the application fails to meet the novelty requirement of patentability.

By failing to respond to the non-final rejection, the application is considered abandoned by the USPTO.

There is one active U.S. child application of the ’248 application (U.S. Pat. App. Ser. No. 17/745,048) currently docketed and ready for examination by the USPTO. The 20 claims of that child application are highly similar to the abandoned parent application, and because of the applicant’s duty of disclosure, the prior art submitted against the parent application must be made available for the examination of the child application.

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.