Patents on pot

Craig Nard has an interesting post titled Pot with patents could plant the seeds of future lawsuits which includes text



As a professor who researches and teaches in the area of patent law, I have been monitoring how private companies are quietly securing these patents on cannabis-based products and methods of production, even though marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug. An even richer irony is that the government itself has patented a method of "administering a therapeutically effective amount of a cannabinoids."


link: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-07-pot-patents-seeds-future-lawsuits.html#jCp

Key word: US 6,630,507 (Hampson)

Of Nard:

Galen J. Roush Professor of Law; Director, Spangenberg Center for Law, Technology & the Arts and the FUSION Certificate Program in Design, Innovation & IP Management

**Separately, one notes a 2015 article at law360 which begins:


The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has started receiving applications for patents on new types of marijuana plants, and attorneys say that the federal government's classification of the drug as illegal could make obtaining a patent difficult, though nothing in the law expressly bars patent protection for illegal substances.

The patent applications follow recent decisions by voters in Colorado and Washington to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. That appears to have emboldened marijuana entrepreneurs in those states and elsewhere to seek patent protection on strains they have developed, but the U.S. government still classifies the drug as a Schedule I narcotic, the most dangerous type of drug.

The USPTO has not yet decided whether to issue any patents on marijuana plants, but many attorneys say it is unlikely to allow patent protection for a substance the federal government has deemed illegal.

"My first impression is that the patent office is going to say no," said David Resnick of Nixon Peabody LLP. "It's still a federal crime and Schedule I narcotic."

Unless Congress decides to legalize marijuana nationwide, it's likely the patent office will say, "this is illegal under federal law, and we're not going to promote it," Resnick said.




link: https://www.law360.com/articles/609140/marijuana-patent-applications-face-tough-road-at-uspto