Porta Sophia Achieves Landmark Milestone: 50 Third-Party Interventions Filed

MADISON, WI USA (July 3, 2023) Porta Sophia, the psychedelic prior art library, has reached a significant milestone by successfully filing 50 third-party interventions. These submissions contain essential prior art that support the examination of patent applications determined to be overly broad based on Porta Sophia's three tier evaluation criteria. Accepted by both domestic and international patent offices, this effort underscores Porta Sophia's commitment to maintaining open access to psychedelic knowledge and safeguarding the public domain.

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 innovators and patent examiners.

Porta Sophia’s first 50 third-party interventions: by the numbers

Porta Sophia began filing third-party interventions in late 2021, and in the year and a half since this first submission their team has routinely identified overly broad patent applications through their three tier patent evaluation process, assembled prior art against overly broad claims described therein, and submitted that prior art to relevant patent offices.

Of the first 50 third-party interventions filed, 34 have been in the form of third-party preissuance submissions with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and the remaining 16 have been filed as third party observations with international patent offices – most of which were filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Thirty seven of these applications are assigned to for-profit companies, nine have university systems as assignees (one co-assigned with a government organization), and four are assigned to private citizens.

As described in the table below, nine interventions thus far have stimulated a response from either the patent office or the applicants directly in terms of narrowing the scope of the claims contained within the applications of interest. Patent examiners of seven of these applications have directly cited prior art included in Porta Sophia’s third-party intervention as grounds for rejecting some or all of the original claims of the application, as documented in publicly available office actions. Assignees of two applications took it upon themselves to amend their claims to be narrower in scope after the submission of prior art by Porta Sophia. Two applications have been officially abandoned. In one such case, the applicant abandoned the application after Porta Sophia’s third-party submission without any activity from the patent office, and in the other case the applicant failed to respond to an office action after the USPTO issued a non-final rejection citing prior art submitted by Porta Sophia.

In addition to impacting individual applications, two third-party interventions have impacted the psychedelic space in broader contexts through their application in the evaluation of patent families. For these two applications, the patent office has utilized or referenced prior art included in the third-party intervention towards the evaluation of additional patent applications in the same patent family, demonstrating the strong potential a single filing has towards the protection of the psychedelic public domain.

To date, none of the U.S. patent applications against which Porta Sophia submitted a third-party preissuance submission has been granted. The majority of these applications are still actively under examination and further office actions regarding the patentability of the claims described therein will be forthcoming. In addition, the Porta Sophia team continues in their efforts to identify and assemble evidence against overly broad applications – third-party intervention submissions are announced on the Porta Sophia press release page. A complete account of Porta Sophia’s third-party interventions and their impact on a case-by-case basis can be found here.

Third-party submissions of prior art

United States patent law allows third parties to submit prior art and concise descriptions of their relevance to the USPTO. Documents submitted may 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.

WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty guidelines allow third parties to submit prior art and concise descriptions of their relevance to the WIPO. This increases the chances 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 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.