Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman and this is psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of I heart radio and protozoa pictures. psychoactive is the
Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs, but any
Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I heart media,
Speaker 1: protozoa pictures or their executives and employees. Indeed, as an
Speaker 1: inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not even
Speaker 1: represent my own, and nothing contained in this show should
Speaker 1: be used as medical advice or encouragement to use any
Speaker 1: type of drugs. Hello, psychoactive listeners. So today's subject is
Speaker 1: the issue of psychedelics and the law, specifically psychedelics and
Speaker 1: Intellectual Property Law, the issue of patents. His name is
Speaker 1: Graham Patch Nick. He's an attorney in San Francisco. We
Speaker 1: founded a law firm about six years ago called Kalix Law,
Speaker 1: C A L Y X, but he's been working in
Speaker 1: the area of patent law now for a couple of
Speaker 1: decades and a whole range of industries, the marijuana industry.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Graham, thanks so much for joining me on psychoactive.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Ethan, for the honor of being here.
Speaker 1: It's it's really enjoyed to be able to participate in
Speaker 1: your podcast, which I've enjoyed for so long. Grandma. Want
Speaker 1: to start off by sort of placing the issue of
Speaker 1: psychedelic patents law at the intersection of two things. One
Speaker 1: the broader issue of patent law, which will get into
Speaker 1: broadly because obviously in many respects the issues that are
Speaker 1: emerging in psychedelics patent law are just emblematic of the
Speaker 1: broader issues and challenges and problems in broader patent law.
Speaker 1: But it's also at the intersection of Patent Law and
Speaker 1: of PSYCHEDELIC law, and there's now a psychedelic law association.
Speaker 1: I think they just recently had one of their first
Speaker 1: meetings in September. And so, apart from patent law, what
Speaker 1: are the other issues in psychedelics law? I mean, I
Speaker 1: go back to thinking about those initial religious freedom cases
Speaker 1: involving the churches that we're using Ayahuasca, the UDV and
Speaker 1: the Siento dime. But apart from that religious peace and
Speaker 1: the area you're working on especially now, what else lies
Speaker 1: in that field of psychedelics law? Well, that's a good question,
Speaker 1: and so I say there is the Psychedelic Bar Association,
Speaker 1: which did just have its first psychedelic laws summit, which
Speaker 1: had over three dozen lawyers who have an interest or
Speaker 1: some bit of a practice in psychedelics. And there is
Speaker 1: also actually, where I am a California psychedelics Bar Association
Speaker 1: founded by two psychedelics General Council of two companies. In
Speaker 1: terms of the amount of work actually that people can
Speaker 1: do in terms of a focus, I think you're right
Speaker 1: to call out the religious freedom restoration act and work
Speaker 1: around there, because for many years that, I think, was
Speaker 1: the predominant area. Or if somebody was interested in psychedelics,
Speaker 1: law could work in and I think up until really
Speaker 1: I've had the great fortune of having this niche and
Speaker 1: psychedelics patents there haven't been all that many and certainly
Speaker 1: not ones where one could make an entire practice or
Speaker 1: the entire focus of a career on psychedelics. And actually
Speaker 1: there's an article that just came out recently by Matt Zorne,
Speaker 1: who I worked together with on a challenge against the
Speaker 1: D a. The challenge against the D A was one
Speaker 1: way we could get involved as lawyers who are interested
Speaker 1: in psychedelics. So the DA had proposed to schedule five
Speaker 1: psychedelic trip to means and because Matt is a really
Speaker 1: good d a lawyer and I had an interest in psychedelics.
Speaker 1: We joined horses, along with some others, to challenge that.
Speaker 1: I actually was reading that article that you mentioned, Graham,
Speaker 1: by Matt just last night and prepping for our discussion
Speaker 1: where he talks about the case, about the D E A.
Speaker 1: I mean we've so long seen the D e a
Speaker 1: as the bad guys, you know, trying to throw things
Speaker 1: into schedule one without any proper, you know, do process
Speaker 1: as her hearings. But this more recent case where the
Speaker 1: D A targeted these five trip to mean is a
Speaker 1: certain class of psychedelics and say they want to write
Speaker 1: the schedule one. I remember Hamilton's Morris, you know, who's
Speaker 1: one of my guests on psychoactives, sounding the alarm he
Speaker 1: emailed made lots of other people, got a lot of
Speaker 1: people mobilized and then I think Matt played a key role,
Speaker 1: with assistance from you, in challenging this, hopefuly beating back
Speaker 1: the d e a uh and forcing them not to
Speaker 1: throw these things into schedule one. So wonder if you
Speaker 1: could just tell our listeners to things. One, what was
Speaker 1: special about that fight and secondly, do you think it's
Speaker 1: going to have broader implications in terms of how the
Speaker 1: D e a views other psychedelic substances in the future. Sure.
Speaker 1: And so your first question, what do I think perhaps
Speaker 1: was special about that? I think what was special really
Speaker 1: was the just artillery, so to Speaker, the you know,
Speaker 1: the amount of work that Matt in particular brought to
Speaker 1: bear to this challenge. And so Hamilton Morris, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: was involved. There was another company, Pantasy of plant sciences,
Speaker 1: and their CEO was very interested in this and it's
Speaker 1: spent a lot of effort even before this had filed
Speaker 1: against the DA. And then we had declarations from uh
Speaker 1: for many experts on the really everything from the fact
Speaker 1: that these particular compounds, we're not ones that had any
Speaker 1: evidence of abuse and didn't pose any threat of safety
Speaker 1: issues or any risks, and the D A's evidence that
Speaker 1: dad was over a decade old, from a report from
Speaker 1: around Um long before this the current wave of psychedelic
Speaker 1: research and the PSYCHEDELIC grandis songs. But Graham, why, why
Speaker 1: were they even bothering to try to throw these five substances,
Speaker 1: and I mean was there was there any evidence that
Speaker 1: they were being misused in the broader public. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a really good question and it's not really something that
Speaker 1: we were able to very easily figure out. I mean,
Speaker 1: the reason they had this ten year old report was
Speaker 1: because back in the ats there was something called Operation
Speaker 1: Red trip where the d a went after the vendors
Speaker 1: of research chemicals of different trip to means, and it
Speaker 1: looked like although they had went back then to go
Speaker 1: after some of the ones that had broader use, these
Speaker 1: sort of were left out because I didn't really have
Speaker 1: that many reports of use and the only deaths that
Speaker 1: were on record were poly drug abuse and involving other things.
Speaker 1: But that, I think, still kind of remains a mystery.
Speaker 1: What actually uh initiated this at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 1: So in terms of you were able to beat them back.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's going to impact how the D
Speaker 1: e a operates in the future on other novel compounds,
Speaker 1: especially psychonoloic compounds? Yeah, I mean I think that's really
Speaker 1: a big open question and so this sort of first
Speaker 1: way we thought about trying to see if there would
Speaker 1: be any evidence of an answer was with the second
Speaker 1: challenge there was to the d a. So just after
Speaker 1: the d a proposed schedule these five psychedelic trip to means.
Speaker 1: The D A also proposed to schedule too psychedelic finela means,
Speaker 1: D O I and D c. both, similarly to the
Speaker 1: five trip to means, had had very little evidence of abuse,
Speaker 1: almost none. D O I, however, is something that's in hundreds,
Speaker 1: if not thousands, of publications as a standard in research
Speaker 1: because it's such a good serotonin receptor agonists and because
Speaker 1: it is unscheduled, it's it's very easy to work with,
Speaker 1: and so we were looking out to see if the
Speaker 1: D A's proposal there would would go forward, and actually
Speaker 1: they withdrew that one as well. So it looks like
Speaker 1: maybe with psychedelics there might be some leniency, but I
Speaker 1: think with both they basically didn't say they're they're done entirely,
Speaker 1: but just that they're going back to the drawing board.
Speaker 1: So just briefly explained to the audience the difference between
Speaker 1: the two categories of substance. Yeah, so the difference between
Speaker 1: the two categories is based on the chemical structure, the
Speaker 1: chemical backbone, or scoff hold is some as some call it,
Speaker 1: and TRIPP to means have a chemical backbone that's the
Speaker 1: same as Serotonin. So serotonin actually is for hydroxy, tripp
Speaker 1: to mean. And so you know, we think of a
Speaker 1: lot of psychedelics we know with perhaps tripped to mean
Speaker 1: in the name. So die methyl trip to mean or
Speaker 1: five methoxy trip to mean Um, and so these are
Speaker 1: all tripp to means. LSD, for instance, is generally classed,
Speaker 1: or can be as a trip to mean. It has
Speaker 1: a more complex structure. Um. Even Ibagaine has a trip
Speaker 1: to mean or Indole core as part of it Bein
Speaker 1: ethyl means. Are Compounds that are like mescaline or or
Speaker 1: M D M A, or have a scaffold that's like
Speaker 1: an amphetamine Um, and amphenamine actually stands for an Alpha methylamine.
Speaker 1: So these all have this finethylamine core which is more
Speaker 1: like the dopamine neurotransmitter. So now let's just put this
Speaker 1: into a kind of a little bit of historical context
Speaker 1: with a with a couple of the most famous names
Speaker 1: and psychedelics creation. Right. The first one is Albert Hoffman,
Speaker 1: who was working at Sandaz and sort of discovered or devised,
Speaker 1: however you want to put an LSD during World War
Speaker 1: Two years. So Hoffman and Sandas did patent those things
Speaker 1: back then. Right, those who were among the few patents
Speaker 1: in this area for many decades. Is that right? That's right. Yes,
Speaker 1: so after Albert Hoffman received samples of Psilocybin Mushrooms, actually
Speaker 1: from Gordon Watson, from the same area where Gordon Watson
Speaker 1: went and had his the first time, Um, Albert Hoffman
Speaker 1: and sandals filed patent applications on the the isolation of
Speaker 1: PSILOCYBIN and also its use as a tranquilizer action. But
Speaker 1: were there many, many more psychedelic patents back then, or
Speaker 1: were these really sort of standing alone? For some decades
Speaker 1: these were standing alone, and many people, of course, will know,
Speaker 1: and with Pikel and Tiko, that there were, how underds
Speaker 1: just in those books that were developed by by Sasha. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you're jumping to my next question here, which is,
Speaker 1: did Sasha Shilgan ever seek or get a patent for
Speaker 1: any of his creations, or do you know, did he
Speaker 1: deliberately choose not to, because those two books, pe call
Speaker 1: and tea call, which are essentially recipe books for hundreds
Speaker 1: of these substances, put it out into the public domain
Speaker 1: and I guess that presumably means they can't be patented
Speaker 1: in the future, at least with the ways that he
Speaker 1: used to synthesize them. But what do you know about
Speaker 1: Sasha's history visa the patent? was He ever ever seeking
Speaker 1: in that area or did he deliberately abstain from seeking that?
Speaker 1: That's a good question actually. Interestingly, part of the reason,
Speaker 1: I think Sasha was even able to do the amount
Speaker 1: of chemistry that he did relating to psychedelics was due
Speaker 1: to the fact that he had some very successful patents
Speaker 1: that he filed when he was working at down and
Speaker 1: those patents earned so much money for the company that
Speaker 1: they gave him a little bit more free reigin with
Speaker 1: his laboratory and allowed him to pursue some other interests.
Speaker 1: In terms of his interest, though, filing patent applications on
Speaker 1: his own. I think it's a little bit unsettled, but
Speaker 1: there's a great article by by Matt Baggett about this
Speaker 1: and from what we know, he did actually file a
Speaker 1: patent application on one trip to mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: off a methyl trip to mean, because he saw a
Speaker 1: commercial market for it actually as a stimulant, I think,
Speaker 1: for older people. So I don't know that he was
Speaker 1: constitutionally or philosophically against patent applications or filing patents to
Speaker 1: protect work. I think perhaps he just didn't see that
Speaker 1: there was a commercial market for a PSYCHEDELIC. Well, what
Speaker 1: about something like two C B? I mean that's, you know,
Speaker 1: while bigard is one of his major, you know, concoctions. Um.
Speaker 1: But I presume there is no patent and presumably can
Speaker 1: be no patent on two C B, since it's been
Speaker 1: in the public record now correct. So I mean anything
Speaker 1: published in Pikel and Tekel, anything at all. It's the
Speaker 1: chemical structure itself disclosed to the public. That's something that
Speaker 1: can't be patented itself, the structure at least. So perhaps
Speaker 1: we'll get into but but of course, and not to
Speaker 1: jump ahead, but you know there are patent applications filed
Speaker 1: on Psychedelics, even known psychedelics. So the fact that just
Speaker 1: the chemical compound can't receive protection for it alone doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that it can't make part of a claim on
Speaker 1: something else that involves it. So a different method of
Speaker 1: synthesizing it might be able to get patent protection. Sure,
Speaker 1: a method of synthesizing it, maybe even a different form
Speaker 1: of it. So maybe now to jump ahead. But so
Speaker 1: there are some applications that are perhaps the most well
Speaker 1: known in the space that covers psilocybin, some of the
Speaker 1: first to be published, some of the ones that have
Speaker 1: probably received the most conversation around them in controversy, and
Speaker 1: they cover psilocybin in a particular crystalline form. So it's
Speaker 1: not psilocybin, just a chemical structure, but it's the way
Speaker 1: it is when it's part of a for instance, you know,
Speaker 1: a drug dark when it's mixed with an excipient at
Speaker 1: a certain purity and in a particular crystal instructure, as
Speaker 1: somebody would receive it if they got it as a
Speaker 1: prescription medication. So, Graham, why don't we just go directly
Speaker 1: there then? So, I mean the case that most people
Speaker 1: have heard of who follow this even tangentially is the
Speaker 1: case involving compass right, and compass is, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the biggest and most prominent the cycle of companies,
Speaker 1: was founded by the Goldsmith's, George Goldsmith, and his wife,
Speaker 1: and he's taken, you know, a fair bit of Flak
Speaker 1: Um Really, I guess, for two things. One is in
Speaker 1: seeking successfully getting a patent for a particular formulation of
Speaker 1: Psilocybin and then secondly, for you know, being highly ambitious
Speaker 1: aggressive in trying to get patents for all sorts of
Speaker 1: things associated with the administration Um of Psilocybin to treat
Speaker 1: h chronic depression and things like that. So maybe just
Speaker 1: explain to our listeners more about that controversy and it's significant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so the controversy on the patents, I think, is
Speaker 1: difficult to view outside of all the ways that it
Speaker 1: is impacted by the broader controversies around compass and compasses
Speaker 1: investors like Peter Thio and their long history. So I
Speaker 1: do think to some degree the controversies on the patents
Speaker 1: are inflected with these broader controversies around how they moved
Speaker 1: from being a nonprofit to a for profit, how they
Speaker 1: obtained information under the guise of what people say saying
Speaker 1: they were at first a nonprofit and speaking with Mak
Speaker 1: any academics who gave them information on on friendly terms
Speaker 1: and then perhaps were tried to be held to nondisclosure agreements,
Speaker 1: and how the company itself at one point allegedly try
Speaker 1: to make it more difficult for its competitors to get
Speaker 1: access to synthetic Solcibin to do research and a number
Speaker 1: of other things. I think that in pact the patent controversies,
Speaker 1: the patent controversies themselves, there's really two types of patents
Speaker 1: that they've pursued. One have been primarily on this psilocybin
Speaker 1: crystal inform, this polymore for polymore of a as it's
Speaker 1: described in their applications, and the other has been an
Speaker 1: application they've filed that published as a pct application that
Speaker 1: did contain all these aspects of the type of psychological
Speaker 1: support a patient would receive and even qualities of the room,
Speaker 1: the soft furniture, the high definition sound system, um. But
Speaker 1: it did cover these interactions with a therapist, like hand
Speaker 1: holding or the therapists putting their hand on the shoulder
Speaker 1: of the patient and things. That seems clearly to be
Speaker 1: part of what would expect perhaps in psilocybin therapy and
Speaker 1: part of what one would expect perhaps not to be
Speaker 1: things like be protected by a patent. In any event,
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like total huts, but I mean
Speaker 1: the hand holding, our soft furniture or their sound stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean that's so inherent to the experience that why
Speaker 1: would they even think to include that stuff in the
Speaker 1: first place? Is it just a broader notion that we're
Speaker 1: getting a patent. You sort of throw everything against the
Speaker 1: wall and see what sticks or or isn't there an
Speaker 1: element of embarrassment about going that far? Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I am actually surprised of anything and I don't
Speaker 1: know what was encompasses minds when they filed this. So
Speaker 1: I can only sort of assume, based on my presumption
Speaker 1: of how most Patent Attorneys Act, I would be surprised
Speaker 1: that they didn't spend the effort to call through their
Speaker 1: patent a little bit or that that claims to see
Speaker 1: what might raise these controversies. But it is fairly standard
Speaker 1: practice when filing a PCT application to include often several
Speaker 1: hundred claims and there's no additional charges for those claims.
Speaker 1: Like there is a national examination and there's there's no
Speaker 1: real downside to shooting them and so oftentimes everything that's
Speaker 1: described in an application to some degree will make its
Speaker 1: way into a claim and there may not be in
Speaker 1: the end any real desire to pursue those things. Perhaps
Speaker 1: the company wants to get an opinion. So actually, as
Speaker 1: part of the PCT process, the applicant will get a
Speaker 1: preliminary opinion from a PCT examiner. You're using an acronym.
Speaker 1: There was it pct. So pct is a acronym that
Speaker 1: stands for the Patent Cooperation Treaty. So it's a treaty
Speaker 1: that has now a hundred and fifties seven, I think, members.
Speaker 1: It's basically a treaty that allows anybody to file a
Speaker 1: single application, that's the PCT application, and then have up
Speaker 1: to thirty months from the earliest filing date to decide
Speaker 1: whether to enter any of those a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: seven member states individually. And so the benefit of doing
Speaker 1: that is if you want to file and multiple applications,
Speaker 1: you know that's going to take a lot of expense
Speaker 1: to to translate your documents, you'll have to pay lawyers
Speaker 1: to be your agent and each those different jurisdictions, and
Speaker 1: so if you had to do that all at once,
Speaker 1: but how it would be a lot of upfront costs
Speaker 1: which in the end you may decide you don't even
Speaker 1: want to pursue it, depending on how your drug development
Speaker 1: and your research is going. So this sort of provides
Speaker 1: an ability to file a single application, get that preliminary
Speaker 1: opinion and hold off on some of those costs to
Speaker 1: see if, down the road and in thirty months. However,
Speaker 1: it takes whether it's even worth filing in those different jurisdictions.
Speaker 1: So are most patent applications in the US simultaneously PCT applications,
Speaker 1: or do people make a judgment and it's only apply
Speaker 1: in a few cases? Sometimes people, if they want to
Speaker 1: accelerate their patent grant, they might file both in the
Speaker 1: US and the PCT simultaneously, or sometimes will enter us
Speaker 1: or another country early and not wait the full thirty months.
Speaker 1: It really depends on the technology. So you can imagine
Speaker 1: in a fast moving technology like the invention that has
Speaker 1: to do with your smartphone, somebody might want to get
Speaker 1: the patent granted as quickly as possible because the value
Speaker 1: that application and the value of that invention might not
Speaker 1: even exist five years from now. With something like drug discovery,
Speaker 1: you might not have a drug on the market for
Speaker 1: seven years or eight years or longer, and so you
Speaker 1: don't really need to worry about having something that you
Speaker 1: can hold against a potentially infringing competitor for for much longer. Now.
Speaker 1: If if a company that did not have some of
Speaker 1: those negative associations you describe about compass in terms of
Speaker 1: their investors, in terms of, you know, having first been
Speaker 1: a nonprofit and taking advantage of that to give them
Speaker 1: an edge up as they became a for profit company.
Speaker 1: Would there have been as much controversy you think about
Speaker 1: them seeking and getting a patent for this other way
Speaker 1: of Synthesizing Psilocybin? I think there are probably some other
Speaker 1: reasons besides just those you mentioned about the other ethics
Speaker 1: perhaps of the company. I think one of them may
Speaker 1: just have to do that they were really the first
Speaker 1: company that had a published psychedelics related application, so most
Speaker 1: of the attention when it came was just directed to them,
Speaker 1: as people were surprised to see something filed on a psychedelic.
Speaker 1: I think another ask to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: it's on Psilocybin and so many of the patent applications
Speaker 1: on new chemical quantities, on on different types of psychedelics.
Speaker 1: Perhaps had Sasha Shulgun filed them on to Seeb when
Speaker 1: he first invented it, or another psychedelic that had never
Speaker 1: been before known, those might have less, less controversy. With
Speaker 1: psilocybin in particular, we know, of course, not only was
Speaker 1: it discovered, I suppose, by the West with with Albert Hoffman,
Speaker 1: and then patented, but it's been used in traditional and
Speaker 1: indigenous ceremonies and uses for centuries or millennium even, and
Speaker 1: so those aspects also caused another layer of controversy. We'll
Speaker 1: be talking more after we hear this ad when people
Speaker 1: talk about what are the first substances that are going
Speaker 1: to be approved for treating uh, you know, different types
Speaker 1: of mental illness, people topically typically talk about m d
Speaker 1: m a and the process that the organization maps is
Speaker 1: pursuing to get approved by the FD A, hopefully later
Speaker 1: this year next year. And the other one is the
Speaker 1: process being pursued by compass to get psilocybin approved for treating,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, intractable depression, and the argument by the
Speaker 1: Goldsmiths and others is that if we did not have
Speaker 1: a chance to patent this synthetics Um Psilocybin, then we,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, could not raise the money to go through
Speaker 1: the entire approval process required to get psilocybin approved for
Speaker 1: treatment in the first place. So what's the response to
Speaker 1: their argument? Well, that is definitely the argument that is
Speaker 1: always used by pharmaceutical companies and a big part of
Speaker 1: the controversy around compass also is the fact that there
Speaker 1: were other companies also pursuing psilocybin, like you SONA or
Speaker 1: clinical development around the same time, and there are concerns
Speaker 1: that by filing these patent applications, compass may preclude others
Speaker 1: from even continuing to do the work that they may
Speaker 1: have started the forehand, and precluding other companies from their
Speaker 1: work and bringing psilocybin also to patients. And so I
Speaker 1: think we can also perhaps look at maps, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: as alternative models to being able to bring a drug
Speaker 1: through the FDA approval process without patents, although maps is
Speaker 1: also relying on something called data exclusivity. So data exclusivity
Speaker 1: is a regulatory benefit that when a company is first
Speaker 1: to obtain regulatory approval for a compound before anyone else
Speaker 1: on that compound, as maps would be with M D
Speaker 1: M A, that company has given five years or perhaps longer,
Speaker 1: to be the exclusive company to sell that compound before
Speaker 1: others can rely on its regulatory data to also seek approval.
Speaker 1: And so that does give maps a period of time
Speaker 1: which will be at least five years. Two gain back
Speaker 1: the type of profits that are argued to be necessary
Speaker 1: to bring the drug through drug discovery, although of course
Speaker 1: maps also relies on philanthropic funding to have gotten the
Speaker 1: drug to that point, to be able to get that
Speaker 1: data exclusivity. I've had Rick Doublin on and so you know,
Speaker 1: obviously we look at with the maps model where they
Speaker 1: set up to nonprofits that sets up what's called a
Speaker 1: public benefit corporation in order to market M D M
Speaker 1: A and M D m a treatment once it's approved
Speaker 1: by the F D A, with all the profits going
Speaker 1: back into maps, and then maps pouring all those profits
Speaker 1: into further, you know, good cluset right, psychedelics, uh research
Speaker 1: and even into broader drug policy reform. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's an optimal model, but we see it as
Speaker 1: one of the best models out there. Conversely, we look
Speaker 1: at a thing like compass, which is essentially a for
Speaker 1: profit company, you know, with obligations to its shareholders and
Speaker 1: produce your obligations there. Um See, you know that that,
Speaker 1: even though it's going to be producing something that's valuable
Speaker 1: for humankind in terms of Psilocybin being used to treat
Speaker 1: intractable depression, ultimately there's a bottom line profit. Saying. Now
Speaker 1: there's another entity, activists in all of this. There's an
Speaker 1: or of nonprofit called freedom to operate, which was started
Speaker 1: by one of the major philanthropists in the psychelics area,
Speaker 1: carry turnbull, and freedom to operate was really set up
Speaker 1: to kind of prevent for profit companies from taking advantage
Speaker 1: and using their finance and power to block others from
Speaker 1: getting involved. And ultimately they spent a million dollars or
Speaker 1: more to challenge compasses effort and ultimately they failed. Compass
Speaker 1: prevailed and I'm sure is did you think that freedom
Speaker 1: to operate was going to succeed, Um, and therefore surprised
Speaker 1: if they were not successful? Or why do you think
Speaker 1: compass did prevail in the end? Well, so I wasn't
Speaker 1: terribly surprised. It's, I think, a result more of just
Speaker 1: the nature of patent law. The compass has quite narrow claims,
Speaker 1: even though they've been often described as really blocking the field.
Speaker 1: Quite narrow claims on this specific polymorph and there they
Speaker 1: are drafted in such a way that it's quite difficult
Speaker 1: to have evidence to show that anything before there application
Speaker 1: was filed would be the same as what they're covering Um,
Speaker 1: and so that's, you know, sort of just a trick
Speaker 1: of their patent drafting and a trick of the way
Speaker 1: that the patent system itself operates, and so I don't
Speaker 1: think I was surprised at the outcome of the case. But,
Speaker 1: you know, I certainly do see the you know, the
Speaker 1: concerns around the fact that there, of course, we're forms
Speaker 1: of synthetic Paul cybin before and there may be other
Speaker 1: forms of synthetic pulcybin that, even if they had been
Speaker 1: produced before and in use before, they may now infringe
Speaker 1: compasses claims and so to the degree they would be
Speaker 1: able to keep a competitor from being able to market
Speaker 1: their own sulcybin products. I do see that that's a concern.
Speaker 1: So Great. Let me circle around in it from a
Speaker 1: different angle on this in this case, you know, I
Speaker 1: had a while back Leonard Picard on psychoactive and as
Speaker 1: many of our listeners know, you know he is regarded
Speaker 1: as one of the great underground chemists UH and produces LSD.
Speaker 1: In the late twentieth century he spent a couple of
Speaker 1: decades in prison and fortunately got out. But when he
Speaker 1: speaks about the underground, the Brotherhood of underground chemists and
Speaker 1: he and others creating you know, they're unique types of LSD.
Speaker 1: You know, were these things that potentially could have been
Speaker 1: patented if these guys had wanted to go through that process,
Speaker 1: notwithstanding it's illegality, were they likely doing things that were
Speaker 1: sufficiently unique in terms of the way that they were
Speaker 1: synthesizing or making the lst that would have been patentable? Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's a really good question. I mean how unique
Speaker 1: they were. I guess I'd have to talk to Leonard
Speaker 1: to understand the, you know, the steps of the process
Speaker 1: that allegedly he was pursuing, and certainly I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know enough about the chemistry to understand if it
Speaker 1: was something that was patentable. Um, in terms of whether
Speaker 1: the patent office might grant a patent on it, I
Speaker 1: think because of the fact that many of these processes
Speaker 1: were not published and we're not included in any prior patents,
Speaker 1: the patent office generally, I think it's perhaps safe to say,
Speaker 1: could have granted patents on them, and so there is
Speaker 1: a bit of a disconnect there in terms of a
Speaker 1: patent to be granted has to be something that's novel
Speaker 1: and inventive, but the patent office to determine whether something
Speaker 1: is novel and inventive really just looks at higher literature
Speaker 1: and some of the peer of viewed literature and some
Speaker 1: of the places that are more obvious to do research,
Speaker 1: but it certainly doesn't look to see what people are
Speaker 1: doing in the underground and even today might not look
Speaker 1: at things that one might see as obvious, like looking
Speaker 1: on Uh errowit or blue light or a forum, UM,
Speaker 1: looking on Reddit, even doing a google search. M You know,
Speaker 1: actually there there's a case. I mean you used a
Speaker 1: term of art in the patent law field, prior art,
Speaker 1: and and I've oftentimes read about the infamous example of
Speaker 1: the D Mt Vate Pen uh and it sounds like
Speaker 1: that's a pretty good example of one of the major problems,
Speaker 1: not just in the psycholical area but the broader pattern area,
Speaker 1: that we now have a federal pattern office which has
Speaker 1: existed for two centuries. I mean pattern law is in
Speaker 1: the U S constitution, but where it's overstaffed and undertrained.
Speaker 1: So just tell our listeners a little bit more about
Speaker 1: that d m t U Vay pen and why it
Speaker 1: stands out there is an the apple and what's wrong
Speaker 1: with the system. Yeah, I mean that example I used
Speaker 1: generally just because it's it's very easy to see how
Speaker 1: the patent office in this case just completely missed the
Speaker 1: prior art and it's a really good example using it again.
Speaker 1: So the prior art is a term of art. I suppose.
Speaker 1: The prior just means anything that's public before the date
Speaker 1: that the patent application was filed. The main part of
Speaker 1: the patent examination process is just for the patent examiner
Speaker 1: to look at the application and in particular, the claims
Speaker 1: of the application. So the claims are what the applicant
Speaker 1: rights to say this is what I should own, and
Speaker 1: it compares those claims to what's in what's called the
Speaker 1: prior art, which just means everything that's public before the
Speaker 1: patent was filed, so everything that was basically in the
Speaker 1: public domain. So, for instance, was something like a vape pen.
Speaker 1: The patent applicant will draft a claim that will say
Speaker 1: a you know, a device for vaporization that contains a
Speaker 1: chamber with a liquid for vaporization, with a chemical compound
Speaker 1: like D mt, and then the patent examiner will take
Speaker 1: that claim and say, well, has anybody else ever done
Speaker 1: this or describe this before, and then it will do
Speaker 1: a search and then it will see if somebody has
Speaker 1: if somebody has and will project the claim and then
Speaker 1: the applicant will come back and say, well, but they
Speaker 1: didn't do it quite like this or the way I'm
Speaker 1: doing it is a little bit narrower, or they'll say no,
Speaker 1: you're you're misreading with the prior art says and actually
Speaker 1: it says something different. Um and the patent examination process
Speaker 1: might take four or five years or longer, with three
Speaker 1: or four or five different times going back and forth
Speaker 1: in writing or sometimes with phone interviews between the Examiner
Speaker 1: and the applicant to decide what's in the prior art
Speaker 1: and what's being claimed and to try to narrow the
Speaker 1: claim so nothing in the claim is covered or covers
Speaker 1: what's in the prior art with this d m t vapen.
Speaker 1: So the application covered basically D M T vapens. They're
Speaker 1: very broadest had figures which were pictures basically of, you know,
Speaker 1: what you would imagine a d m t vapen looks like,
Speaker 1: the same way you know a cannabis vape looks like
Speaker 1: the kind you can buy the dispensary. Um and the
Speaker 1: patent examiner did a search and it looked at prior
Speaker 1: patent applications and then it did a search in a
Speaker 1: particular database of chemical abstracts from the just scientific literature
Speaker 1: for less than seven minutes, because everything is on the record.
Speaker 1: So you can see the search terms they use, you
Speaker 1: can see how much time they spent, you can see
Speaker 1: the databases. They looked in Um and they searched for
Speaker 1: a few terms like dimethyl trip to mean, but they
Speaker 1: didn't search for d m t, the abbreviate just to letters.
Speaker 1: They didn't search for Vapen, they didn't search for Google
Speaker 1: and because of that they missed the fact that the
Speaker 1: few months prior to the application being filed there was
Speaker 1: a whole double blind article on d m D v
Speaker 1: Apens with many pictures. It looked just like the pictures
Speaker 1: in the path an application. UH, several years before that
Speaker 1: there was an article by somebody, Lester Black, who wrote
Speaker 1: all about D M T v APENS and actually wrote
Speaker 1: about how he receives some copies of D M T
Speaker 1: v APENS and describes him in the article Um. Coincidentally,
Speaker 1: D M T v APENS. That actually, I believe, came
Speaker 1: from David Heldre, who, David Heldreth, has talked about this.
Speaker 1: So I don't think I'm revealing anything offered controversial. Actually
Speaker 1: say tell our audience who David Heldreth. So David Heldreth
Speaker 1: is the CEO of Pantasy Plant Sciences who he mentioned,
Speaker 1: who was the sort of thorn in the d a side,
Speaker 1: who may have been part of the reason why the
Speaker 1: d a had been thinking about these particular trip to
Speaker 1: means when they decided to schedule them. Um, just a
Speaker 1: sort of small world coincidence in terms of getting back
Speaker 1: to the DM DV apens. But in any event, because
Speaker 1: the patent examiner didn't do a google search, didn't search
Speaker 1: for vapen or for D M T, they decided that
Speaker 1: this was a novel and Inventive Uh invention and they
Speaker 1: granted it patent on it, and the patent covers any
Speaker 1: d m t vapen that you would see and can
Speaker 1: that pattern that will be reversed. I mean now that
Speaker 1: there their mistakes are become so publicly known, it could
Speaker 1: be Um, the you know the the type of effort
Speaker 1: it might take, but it hasn't been. No. So somebody
Speaker 1: could do what for him to operate did as you mentioned?
Speaker 1: I don't think it. In this instance. It would costs
Speaker 1: a million dollars, but it is quite expensive so it's
Speaker 1: over fifty dollars just in filing fees to the patent
Speaker 1: office two challenge a patent after it's been granted, Um.
Speaker 1: And of course that's before you even pay for for
Speaker 1: lawyers and in many instances you probably have to pay
Speaker 1: for an expert to submit an affidavit Um and gather
Speaker 1: other factual information. So it's, you know, a bit prohibitive
Speaker 1: to be able to challenge patents after they've been been granted.
Speaker 1: And so you know, the D M T v APEN has,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not not necessarily the example of the
Speaker 1: most valuable patent that's out there, but it's a an
Speaker 1: easy example to see the way that the patent office
Speaker 1: can miss things and in this way of missing things
Speaker 1: because of, as you mentioned, that the Patent Examiners are
Speaker 1: typically overworked. Um. There's actually a bill pending right now
Speaker 1: by by two senators, Leahy and until us, to try
Speaker 1: to give pattent examiners more time. They don't always spend
Speaker 1: as little as seven minutes, but they don't generally spend
Speaker 1: all that much time and not enough time because of
Speaker 1: the way they're rewarded up for just moving quickly through applications,
Speaker 1: and so this means that many patents get granted and
Speaker 1: many of those granted patents can end up being asserted
Speaker 1: against companies who could have been doing the same thing
Speaker 1: they were doing even before the patent was filed, and
Speaker 1: so this is often kind of wasteful litigation that it's
Speaker 1: taking away from real innovation. One thing also, I mean
Speaker 1: I know you worked in, Uh did a fair bit
Speaker 1: of work in the area of marijuana law and patents
Speaker 1: before you jump more fully into the psychedelics area. And
Speaker 1: I saw that one of the CO founder of Compass,
Speaker 1: George Goldsmith, was quoted as saying that when he it started,
Speaker 1: one of his models, his role models, was GW pharmaceutical,
Speaker 1: you know, the UK firm which I think was the
Speaker 1: first to get approval and get a patent for its
Speaker 1: Um you know, it's it's version of medical marijuana. So
Speaker 1: can you say a little something? Why would why would
Speaker 1: George Goldsmith, ahead of compass, have looked to g double
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical and what was the significance in the marijuana field? Um, well,
Speaker 1: it's a good question and actually I should say I
Speaker 1: think even my start to a large degree was because
Speaker 1: of what G W Farma was doing in that a
Speaker 1: lot of my early clients in the cannabis days before
Speaker 1: I started working in Psychedelics, was because there are many
Speaker 1: companies that were looking at what Gw was doing and
Speaker 1: and seeing that was a way of raising money to
Speaker 1: to try to bring other canabinoid based medicines to to
Speaker 1: market through the FDA approval process. But what Gw Farma
Speaker 1: did was file many patent applications. I think they have
Speaker 1: several hundred on purified forms of CBD and and all
Speaker 1: the ways that CBD can be used in different types
Speaker 1: of treatment. GW has patents covering CBD for just about
Speaker 1: everything you can think. So in terms of this industry now,
Speaker 1: I mean look, obviously when when the companies are engaged
Speaker 1: in trying to come up with truly novel products, right,
Speaker 1: new psychedelic substances in the way that Sasha was creating
Speaker 1: in his backyard lab UM, or if they're trying to
Speaker 1: create a new version of U, say AAHUASCA D Mt
Speaker 1: Without the nausea or a shorter acting thing. I mean
Speaker 1: there are some people who are out there just saying hey,
Speaker 1: leave nature alone, we got what we need. We don't
Speaker 1: need new synthetic creations but I think most people would
Speaker 1: say no, you know, uh, individuals, the companies should be
Speaker 1: free to try to create other novel psychelic substances that
Speaker 1: may be enhanced the benefits of what nature has already
Speaker 1: produced or reduced the downsides, or that can be more
Speaker 1: efficacious in various ways or more naturally tailored to treat
Speaker 1: certain conditions. Right. But what we also know is that,
Speaker 1: whether we're talking about the psychedelics are almost any other here,
Speaker 1: that the vast majority are not really about that. So
Speaker 1: I was reading recently, I don't know when exactly this
Speaker 1: piece was written, but it said that if you look
Speaker 1: at the top five public psychedelics companies by market CAP,
Speaker 1: so a Thaie life sciences, which invest in a range
Speaker 1: of other companies, compass, which we've talked about, mind mead,
Speaker 1: which you've mentioned, and also G H research in Cybin,
Speaker 1: they've already submitted or owned the rights to at least
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty seven patents, with undoubtedly hundreds more in
Speaker 1: the pipeline. So what I'm curious there is that, I mean,
Speaker 1: is this all sort of, you know, ultimately going to
Speaker 1: turn out? I mean, whatever value added it happens here.
Speaker 1: I assume that most of these are not novel products.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are all forms of administration or
Speaker 1: you know synthesis that are not all that crucial to
Speaker 1: the advances. I assume that many of them their market
Speaker 1: cap value is based upon how likely they are to
Speaker 1: get a patent and that's primarily what's drawing, you know,
Speaker 1: driving them. So I'm wondering, are we all headed in
Speaker 1: the wrong direction on this thing, or is there any
Speaker 1: collaborative effort among the leaders, the for profit leaders um
Speaker 1: together was say, Rick Dolbin's maps or or carry Turnbull's
Speaker 1: Um Freedom to operate? So two part question. Is it
Speaker 1: all heading the wrong direction and is there any collaborative
Speaker 1: effort to try to write this? Well, yeah, those are
Speaker 1: really food questions. I mean I maybe I'll start with
Speaker 1: the second because it's the easiest one, because it's just
Speaker 1: the answer at least, is I don't know, and perhaps
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I mean I certainly think that
Speaker 1: there could be ways of collaborating, but just in terms
Speaker 1: of the way the system is set up and that
Speaker 1: this is not something about just perhaps psychedelics, but just
Speaker 1: about the you know, the way are are just corporate
Speaker 1: ecosystem and broader capitalist system is structured. You know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think these companies are necessarily going to pair
Speaker 1: with AH nonprofits and and and try to work together.
Speaker 1: I know that their investors would want that. Um, maybe
Speaker 1: to answer one thing just that you didn't ask, which
Speaker 1: was just about the number of patents. I mean you're
Speaker 1: right to call the very large number of them, but
Speaker 1: I think part of this is just because with any
Speaker 1: even individual drug there are dozens, if not hundreds, of
Speaker 1: patents filed on just like a single drug. So I
Speaker 1: don't think all of these will reflect necessarily novel compounds
Speaker 1: or novel ways of really doing things. In terms of
Speaker 1: our we all pointed in the wrong direction. You know,
Speaker 1: I often go back, um to something I heard at horizons,
Speaker 1: which was Joe Green at the Business Day saying that
Speaker 1: in Oregon it costs five and a half million dollars
Speaker 1: to bring measure one o nine through, and I don't
Speaker 1: know what it costs to get measure one tent through,
Speaker 1: but I know I would imagine it's something on that
Speaker 1: same order. Now, if we think of all these companies,
Speaker 1: and by the way, for our listeners, one oh nine,
Speaker 1: Um was was the initiative in Oregon to legalized psycholic therapy.
Speaker 1: And the one ten is the one that was D
Speaker 1: by Drug Policy Alliance under my successors, together with allies
Speaker 1: in Oregon, which is essentially a Portugal model, the all
Speaker 1: drug decrim and a siphoning money over to treatment for addiction.
Speaker 1: So yeah, right now and that you're good to describe those.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so obviously one to measure to get drug
Speaker 1: or PSILOCYBIN therapy legalizing and one for decriminalization, and both
Speaker 1: just in one state, in Oregon. But let's say even
Speaker 1: together it was, you know, it's something on the order
Speaker 1: of ten million dollars. And so calling this out to
Speaker 1: say at Horizons Um that you know the amount of
Speaker 1: money that's raised by all of these companies, so g
Speaker 1: h Pharma, Atie, compass, mind met the others, many, many
Speaker 1: orders of magnitude more than ten millions of ten million dollars.
Speaker 1: So are we pointing the wrong direction? Maybe the question is,
Speaker 1: is putting all this money in drug development, in patent filings?
Speaker 1: Is that going the wrong direction? Mean what would all
Speaker 1: this money do if it was put into drug policy
Speaker 1: or form into a to decriminalize drugs at the state level?
Speaker 1: And to attempts to provide other legally legalized, regulated Um
Speaker 1: ways to access psychedelics, like what measure one on nine
Speaker 1: is going to do an Oregon Um. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a question, I suppose, of just kind of priorities, um,
Speaker 1: but but it is something that I think, uh, depending on,
Speaker 1: you know, what what you see as being the sort
Speaker 1: of ideal orientation for a future psychedelics market, that perhaps
Speaker 1: we could be pointing away from it. Because what I
Speaker 1: worry about old say is I look, you know, another
Speaker 1: issue that I was involved in deeply was the one
Speaker 1: around overdose and making the locks zone more available. And that,
Speaker 1: you know, the lock zone was patented, uh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: sixty years or so by Jack Fishman and a few others.
Speaker 1: It was not a big profit thing that patent ran out.
Speaker 1: But then you have one company that comes along and
Speaker 1: produces a nasal spray version and another one that produces
Speaker 1: an auto injective version. So they're making a little easier
Speaker 1: for people to administer and then they do everything possible
Speaker 1: to try to block others from coming into that. And
Speaker 1: the face of a massive over those fatality crisis, you know,
Speaker 1: we have these products of Deloson, which has cost pennies
Speaker 1: or maybe dollars to make, but the products are being
Speaker 1: sold for, you know, you know, tens of dollars, if
Speaker 1: not hundreds of dollars. And so is that a risk
Speaker 1: in this psychedelics area, in the psychedelic Strap Ay area,
Speaker 1: are we going to see an issue where, in fact,
Speaker 1: some of the first companies to succeed in getting patents
Speaker 1: land up blocking significant innovations and reductions and cost in
Speaker 1: the way that we saw happen, for example, in the
Speaker 1: the loxone area? I mean, I definitely do see that
Speaker 1: that's a concern and that really just is the way
Speaker 1: the patent system plays itself out. The benefit of the
Speaker 1: patent to the patent holder is that they can set
Speaker 1: prices however they want. That's the monopoly power that the
Speaker 1: patent gives them and I think in just about every
Speaker 1: instance with pharmaceutical drugs, they tend to go up in
Speaker 1: price as the patent life goes along because the company
Speaker 1: has the ability to set those prices on their own.
Speaker 1: And so I mean to myself, this is something I'm
Speaker 1: very sensitive too because as a type one diabetic, I
Speaker 1: use insulin and insulin I think like a Oxon very
Speaker 1: famously was was patented many, many years ago, and actually
Speaker 1: that the pattern was sold to a university for a
Speaker 1: dollar because the inventor wanted insulin to be broadly available.
Speaker 1: And people now, a hundred years later, still might pay
Speaker 1: over a thousand dollars a month for it Um and
Speaker 1: so similarly, I think in the pharmaceutical space companies know
Speaker 1: how to play these games with their their patents, to
Speaker 1: extend patent life and patent protection, to find ways to
Speaker 1: patent tweaks to a molecule or delivery device or a
Speaker 1: way that it's being offered, to continue to be able
Speaker 1: to raise prices and exclude competition. So I do see
Speaker 1: that once the psychedelics enter the pharmaceutical system is at large,
Speaker 1: those suffer from all the same structural failures of the
Speaker 1: broader patent system within the pharmaceutical industry. Let's take a
Speaker 1: break here and go to an ad. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to solutions, right, so there's the big picture one, right,
Speaker 1: which is about the overall patent system being broken. Right.
Speaker 1: So The New York Times earlier this year had a
Speaker 1: huge editorial called Save America's patent system. You know about how,
Speaker 1: fundamentally broken it is and what needs to be done.
Speaker 1: And then there was a very good article, I think
Speaker 1: you've quoted various places, by one of the smartest young
Speaker 1: journalists covering the psychedelics field, Shalah love, and the title
Speaker 1: of her piece was psychedelic patents are broken because the
Speaker 1: patent system is broken. So we're talking about patent reform
Speaker 1: in the US. Is Anything on the horizon thin or
Speaker 1: are we just kind of doomed to keep living with
Speaker 1: this for years the way it is? Well, I hope
Speaker 1: you don't have to end here, because how do to
Speaker 1: some degree think that we in a sense are doomed,
Speaker 1: at least with the patent system we have, especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to the pharmaceutical space, because the pharmaceutical lobby
Speaker 1: is really one of the strongest and the pharmaceutical lobby
Speaker 1: has been doing all it can to keep the patent
Speaker 1: system working in its favor. And so I think there
Speaker 1: certainly are efforts, and I will keep my fingers crossed
Speaker 1: that these efforts can be successful, both in terms of
Speaker 1: sort of at the individual level, like with what the
Speaker 1: hey utilius are doing, making sure individual patents are are
Speaker 1: are granted fairly, and in view of all the proper
Speaker 1: prior art Um. I think, for broadly that the patent
Speaker 1: system itself. There are things that are being worked out
Speaker 1: through other reform bills that have been introduced in I
Speaker 1: think there's still a chance there can be something that
Speaker 1: might raise the standards so that pharmaceutical innovation actually occurs.
Speaker 1: I mean, despite the fact that hundreds of pharmaceutical patents
Speaker 1: are granted every year, it's a or on every drug,
Speaker 1: even it's a very small number of them that actually
Speaker 1: provide any real innovation in terms of patient outcomes and
Speaker 1: in terms of clinical benefits. Um. But I mean I
Speaker 1: think even Perdue Pharma right effectively extended the patent or
Speaker 1: got a new one on its oxy content just by
Speaker 1: a slight reformulation and effective interactions with FDA. And I
Speaker 1: think what they were doing was fairly typical. Right, you
Speaker 1: have a kind of medication which maybe a breakthrough or
Speaker 1: semi breakthrough, but then just by tinkering it with it,
Speaker 1: they just keep extending their protections, patent protections, keeping the
Speaker 1: cost up, blocking generics and uh, and and yet you know,
Speaker 1: for all the politicians saying we need to fix this Um,
Speaker 1: not much is happening. I think that's right, and I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's wrapped up inside, you know, broader reform
Speaker 1: to to just the healthcare system and the way insurance
Speaker 1: covers drugs and health care more broadly. And so it
Speaker 1: is in terms of a structure to look out at
Speaker 1: from within the the PSYCHEDELIC space. It's something that is
Speaker 1: pretty daunting to think that the ethos of the psychedelic
Speaker 1: space somehow can be used as a as a model
Speaker 1: to reimagine the pharmaceutical patent system at large. But I
Speaker 1: think there are ways to that. Companies within the PSYCHEDELIC
Speaker 1: space can choose to interact with the patent system a
Speaker 1: little bit differently and there have been some examples of
Speaker 1: some companies who have made some attempts to do that
Speaker 1: and I think it certainly is something that's on people's
Speaker 1: minds in the PSYCHEDELIC space. And so I think just
Speaker 1: the fact that so many people are talking about psychedelics
Speaker 1: patterns and see them as a as a problem, means
Speaker 1: that companies will, to the extent they have uh, you know,
Speaker 1: consumers of their of their products, concerned with what they're doing,
Speaker 1: perhaps can be held to higher standard. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I see. I mean if you look at the proactive efforts.
Speaker 1: I mean we've discussed free to operate, right carry Turnbull's operation,
Speaker 1: which try to block compass. But you know, there's also
Speaker 1: this thing called Porta Sophia, right, which tries to address
Speaker 1: the issue with prior art and to try to make
Speaker 1: sort of create a database of all the prior art,
Speaker 1: you know, the pre existing you know, types of uses
Speaker 1: of these drugs so that people can't falsely make claims
Speaker 1: for patents. And there's, I think you're, you're you're, a
Speaker 1: thing called Psychedelic Alpha Dot COM um, which provides, you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty good listing of all this. Just tell tell
Speaker 1: us a little more about what's going on with your
Speaker 1: thing and and port to Sophia, their significance and are
Speaker 1: those sorts of ideas that come that are all settening
Speaker 1: in other areas of non, you know, psychoactive drug areas?
Speaker 1: Maybe to the place to start with the Psychedelic Alpha
Speaker 1: is actually to sort of go back to the origin
Speaker 1: stories of it. Um, I actually was volunteering at a
Speaker 1: at a maps INFO table at a at a conference
Speaker 1: that just coincidentally happened to be the weekend after an
Speaker 1: article by Olivia Gold Hill published on compasses first patent.
Speaker 1: It hadn't yet published but they had Um told people
Speaker 1: about its filing and that it was on Psilocybin, and
Speaker 1: this article was really the first to kind of raise
Speaker 1: the outrage and because I mentioned everyone there that I
Speaker 1: was a patent lawyer, I spent basically the weekend talking
Speaker 1: about uh Psilocybin patents and how it could be even
Speaker 1: possible to file a patent on PSILOCYBIN. And after I
Speaker 1: left the conference that weekend and went home, I started
Speaker 1: keeping track of a table of patents on Psilocybin in particular,
Speaker 1: at which point there were maybe a dozen and probably
Speaker 1: not very many more, including the ones at Albert Hoffman
Speaker 1: had filed that Sandos. Since then, of course, now there
Speaker 1: are are many hundreds and because patent applications aren't published
Speaker 1: until eighteen months after they're filed, there there's probably even
Speaker 1: twice or three times as many now, but most of
Speaker 1: them still just secret. That is not only something that's
Speaker 1: in the in the PSYCHEDELIC space. I mean part of
Speaker 1: the reason I decided it would be worthwhile publishing it
Speaker 1: on Psychedelic Alpha was because it was, you know, a
Speaker 1: good way of making people aware of the types of
Speaker 1: applications that were out there and and sort of starting
Speaker 1: a conversation around them. But there's an organization called IMAC,
Speaker 1: the initiative for medicines access and knowledge, which I use
Speaker 1: their statistics a lot. I Am A K right, a
Speaker 1: k dit org, which I think was an important source
Speaker 1: for that New York Times editorial and it's been taking
Speaker 1: on some of these issues in a broader way. So yeah,
Speaker 1: very much so, yes, and they've been sort of counting
Speaker 1: and cataloging that the number of applications that have been
Speaker 1: filed on of other pharmaceuticals, just in terms of seeing
Speaker 1: the impact that they have on particular pharmaceutical drugs. And
Speaker 1: so to some degree that was, I'd say, somewhat of
Speaker 1: an inspiration, just seeing that a conversation can be started
Speaker 1: around individual compounds through looking at the types of applications
Speaker 1: that are filed on them and what that might mean
Speaker 1: for the price of somebody using that that compound as
Speaker 1: part of a medicine. Um. I see, and I think
Speaker 1: even with Imac died or I MAAC, are they engaging
Speaker 1: in some ways in the psychological area or they are
Speaker 1: familiar with it? Are you in contact with them? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're co founder, Prett Crystal has um actually been
Speaker 1: on a panel with me with Shakruna, Um, speaking of
Speaker 1: Sheila love. I think Um really is, uh, the best
Speaker 1: writer on on pharmaceutical or on psychedelic patents in this
Speaker 1: space and and certainly everyone should read but she's written
Speaker 1: about this. Um, she and Um Actually Josh Hardman and myself,
Speaker 1: and pretty crystal proposed a panel itself. By southwest is
Speaker 1: coming here, so we hope we can all speak together.
Speaker 1: So we have, of course also been speaking a little
Speaker 1: bit together in general and see that we're aligned in
Speaker 1: terms of what we hope to see. For you know,
Speaker 1: the psychedelic spaces is very similar to the types of
Speaker 1: reforms that Imac for for decades now, has argued are
Speaker 1: necessary in the broader medicine space. And and and preachy
Speaker 1: had done really great work arguing around access to AIDS,
Speaker 1: medications and and other drugs for for many years, even
Speaker 1: before she started Imac, and has has long been an
Speaker 1: advocate for more equitable access to pharmaceuticals, and so definitely
Speaker 1: saw both that as a resource but also as an
Speaker 1: inspiration for sort of the ways that would be useful
Speaker 1: to sort of Orient Um ethics in the in the
Speaker 1: psychedolic space itself. So Graham normally asked this the beginning.
Speaker 1: But how did you get intold, I mean I've I've
Speaker 1: heard you talk about growing up in the west coast
Speaker 1: with Hippie parents and getting involved at a young age
Speaker 1: on UH. You know, I think you said you've been
Speaker 1: involved with the prop two fifteen in the Middle Ca
Speaker 1: Marojuina initiative twenty five years ago. But just teleraudience a
Speaker 1: little more about your evel Lucian uh into becoming one
Speaker 1: of the leading patent lawyers working in this area. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think maybe going back to that Um property fifteen
Speaker 1: is but sort of how I draw my origin story,
Speaker 1: although I suppose maybe the fortune of growing up in
Speaker 1: Oakland too. I mean so I do mention, you know,
Speaker 1: my my mom went to Berkeley in the Sixties and
Speaker 1: Um my dad did have his share of long hair,
Speaker 1: although I don't think they were either, the two of them,
Speaker 1: that much into psychedelics. And so I grew up with
Speaker 1: be here now sort of as a coffee table book
Speaker 1: and you know, Carlos Castaneda and other books on the
Speaker 1: the bookshelves. That sort of piqued my interest. And so
Speaker 1: I was kind of a stoner in high school and
Speaker 1: when proper to fifteen was on the ballot. Actually one
Speaker 1: of the first things I did was, when I had
Speaker 1: my driver's license, go collect signatures for the ballot on
Speaker 1: in front, in front of a couple of grocery stores.
Speaker 1: And in college, fairly early I had my first psychedelic
Speaker 1: experiences and I had so much inspiration from those that
Speaker 1: I changed my major to, you neuroscience, to try to
Speaker 1: both learn a little bit more about how it had
Speaker 1: those impacts on my on my consciousness, how chemicals like
Speaker 1: that could have such a profound role in, uh, shifting
Speaker 1: the way that I saw myself and saw the world.
Speaker 1: Um and actually, for a time in college thought that
Speaker 1: perhaps I could study a some sort of psychopharmacology or
Speaker 1: I speaking of peakle and Tacl and I bought bought
Speaker 1: those books Um and sort of saw Sasha. I suppose
Speaker 1: it's something of a Um inspiration. And you know, I
Speaker 1: received some encouragement from others that law school might be
Speaker 1: a good way if I was interested in drug policy,
Speaker 1: and so somewhat naively, I suppose, in retrospect, because thinking
Speaker 1: I could work in cognitive liberty or something like drug
Speaker 1: policy with law school loans. Um, it did end up
Speaker 1: in law school but realized that the Science degree to
Speaker 1: to pay off my loans was best used in the
Speaker 1: the patent space, which was, you know, hiring it good
Speaker 1: salaries and paying bonuses. And even though I had written
Speaker 1: my law school term paper actually on the way that
Speaker 1: generics are kept off the market by aggressive patent policies and, Um,
Speaker 1: how drugs are are kept expensive by the sort of
Speaker 1: abuse of the patent laws, it spent the first sort
Speaker 1: of half decade of my career at a law firm
Speaker 1: in New York working with branded drug companies to actually
Speaker 1: keep generic drugs off the market for longer, Um, and
Speaker 1: so to some degree I think I'm paying off that
Speaker 1: Karma a little bit now. Well, I'm curious how you
Speaker 1: balance that now, right and because obviously you know many
Speaker 1: of your clients are going to be for profit companies
Speaker 1: and are when you're talking with them or they want
Speaker 1: to hire you, retain you or if you're already working
Speaker 1: for them, are are there lines where you say look,
Speaker 1: this is something I cannot make that argument here, or
Speaker 1: do you turn down client who wants you to do
Speaker 1: things that you don't feel or ethically right. I mean
Speaker 1: because you're obviously out there as a forceful voice in
Speaker 1: terms of it trying to advocate for good policies in
Speaker 1: this area. You serve, you as an advisor to Chakruna,
Speaker 1: you know, be able about these organizations doing a lot
Speaker 1: of good work, but you're also, you know, a for profit.
Speaker 1: I mean you were an attorney with clients. So how
Speaker 1: do you balance that in your in your professional life? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that I think is really the best, the best kind
Speaker 1: of like the best question, and I think that is
Speaker 1: the attention that I find myself trying to navigate and
Speaker 1: spend a lot of my own time really thinking about.
Speaker 1: I'm fortunately, I think that when I started my own firm,
Speaker 1: to sort of go back a little bit before maybe
Speaker 1: answering the question, when I started Calix Law in actually
Speaker 1: that tension was sort of part of the reason for
Speaker 1: even starting it. I had worked for a long time
Speaker 1: on a case against Monsanto with their genetically modified crops
Speaker 1: Um and I had obviously been very interested in cannabis
Speaker 1: and that was part of the reason for wanting to
Speaker 1: enter the cannabis space as a patent lawyer and because
Speaker 1: of my interest in it. I had a number of
Speaker 1: friends who are trying to go from the legacy market
Speaker 1: into the sort of adult use market at the turn
Speaker 1: of and sort of my thesis for starting my firm
Speaker 1: was that there were ways for smaller inventors to get
Speaker 1: involved with the patent system and two also used the
Speaker 1: patent system to keep off a company like a Monsanto
Speaker 1: or a Philip Morris from entering the cannabis space and
Speaker 1: sort of taking it over and dominating it. And so
Speaker 1: that sort of tension between seeing patents as ways of
Speaker 1: giving a leg up to smaller, independent inventors, but also
Speaker 1: as a way of keeping a market from being dominated
Speaker 1: by aggressive monopolists. Um is sort of the kind of
Speaker 1: premise that I even started my firm with, and so
Speaker 1: taking that kind of thinking through to the psychedelic space,
Speaker 1: I think that was part of the kind of fortune
Speaker 1: that let me see that there were these issues around
Speaker 1: pcybian patenting, for instance, Um, perhaps a bit earlier than
Speaker 1: you know, maybe some others did, and so I think
Speaker 1: I'm I'm fortunate for having spent some time talking about
Speaker 1: those controversies that I actually do get presented with opportunities
Speaker 1: to to try to find ways to to navigate them. Um,
Speaker 1: from clients who who see patents as being necessary to
Speaker 1: raise money. I have some clients who tried to go
Speaker 1: without patents and just pursue their their work, uh, sort
Speaker 1: of in the open, put things in the public domain,
Speaker 1: and and sometimes found that they either couldn't raise money or,
Speaker 1: in one instance, another company took an article that they
Speaker 1: had published and filed patterns covering exactly what it was
Speaker 1: that they had described. Um, and so I saw a
Speaker 1: concern that like, well, if we don't file a pattern
Speaker 1: for like, what if somebody else does? And so, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I've perhaps had to turn down
Speaker 1: clients for wanting to unethically use the patent system, and
Speaker 1: maybe I've just had the fortune of because I've been
Speaker 1: to some degree of kind of a voice for for
Speaker 1: balance in the patent system. Okay, so last questions here.
Speaker 1: One of the issues that's been out there more and more,
Speaker 1: and I know that Cody Swiss River Stix Foundation is
Speaker 1: making this issue and others have, is what is owed
Speaker 1: to indigenous peoples when the psychedelic products that, you know,
Speaker 1: emerged from their indigenous uses start becoming commercialized, and so
Speaker 1: you know I mean when we look at Mescaline and Peyote,
Speaker 1: when we look at Eboga coming from cabone and the
Speaker 1: surrounding areas in West Africa, I mean he's came so
Speaker 1: much out of indigenous use, is mescal in Um. And
Speaker 1: so it's a question what is owed and exactly to whom.
Speaker 1: And then there's the broadening of the issues. So, for example,
Speaker 1: when it comes to Psilocybin, mushrooms are growing, you know,
Speaker 1: they grow all around the world and on the one
Speaker 1: hand you hear the claim. Well, but for Maria Sabina
Speaker 1: Educating Gordon Wasson, you know, sixty, seventy years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: we want to have all these people aware of Psilocybin uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in other parts of the world. But then
Speaker 1: I think it's Paul stamens will say, well, hold on
Speaker 1: a second. PSILOCYBIN has been actually used around the world
Speaker 1: of different ways for a long time. So let's not
Speaker 1: extend this indigenous obligation issue to PSILOCYBIN. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: as m D M A, which is a twentieth century
Speaker 1: synthetic creation Um, is anything owed from something like m
Speaker 1: d m a UH to indigenous people? So what's your
Speaker 1: view on on what is the proper obligations and and and,
Speaker 1: to the extent there are obligations, how those should be addressed? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean well, M D M A, even though Um,
Speaker 1: I think, comes from Sasha's tinkering, so to speak, with mescaline.
Speaker 1: So perhaps even there you could draw some degree through
Speaker 1: line back to try to find some way to provide reciprocity.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we speak in terms of legal obligations,
Speaker 1: legally there really are none in the sense that there
Speaker 1: are some treaties, there is something called the Nagoya Protocol,
Speaker 1: but it hasn't been adopted by the US ratified by
Speaker 1: the US, and so there's basically just the patent law,
Speaker 1: which prevents companies from patenting something that are that's done
Speaker 1: by somebody else. But there's certainly no mechanism for reciprocity.
Speaker 1: It's in the law, unfortunately. So it really is up
Speaker 1: to to us, I suppose, to decide what companies are
Speaker 1: owed and to hold companies to account for that. In
Speaker 1: terms of my own views, I mean I think this
Speaker 1: all really comes down to just the broader controversy to
Speaker 1: around patents, which is where the values derived from and
Speaker 1: how much of that value gets extracted towards the the
Speaker 1: owner of a patent or the the owner of a
Speaker 1: group of patents. And we can look at not just
Speaker 1: psilocybin but sort of any invention and I think any
Speaker 1: invention to some degree, I think even the UH that
Speaker 1: the saying goes. You know, we stand on the shoulders
Speaker 1: of giants like nothing comes sue generous and even though
Speaker 1: our patent system is served based on this ideal of
Speaker 1: this kind of loan inventor genius working alone is workbench,
Speaker 1: who sort has this Eureka moment where he comes up
Speaker 1: with something that's never been done before and gets a
Speaker 1: patent on it and is entitled to all the monopoly
Speaker 1: profits on that for the next two decades. Nothing is
Speaker 1: quite like that. And so how do we really find
Speaker 1: a way to give some calculation to, you know, what
Speaker 1: is Ode and you know, where does the value derive from, Um,
Speaker 1: in terms of reciprocity, for for psychedelics? I mean, I
Speaker 1: I certainly think that it's important to recognize that. You know,
Speaker 1: many psychedelics come from these lineages where, whether they're just
Speaker 1: from underground use like m D M A, dating back
Speaker 1: to the seventies and eighties, whether they're from further back
Speaker 1: than that, dating back to Maria Sabina or earlier, whether
Speaker 1: they're getting back to, you know, potentially millennial use. Um.
Speaker 1: I think having the conversation that that people are having, Um,
Speaker 1: you know the question you're asking me, Um, not to
Speaker 1: necessarily dodge it, but I think that's what's important and
Speaker 1: I think it's you know it's even though I know
Speaker 1: you asked my personal views. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: an important decision for Vole to be making as the
Speaker 1: PSYCHEDELIC space starts to mature more in terms of trying
Speaker 1: to understand what the companies who make all the profits, uh,
Speaker 1: should be responsible for. And I'm here again optimistic because
Speaker 1: I see that there are many. Already you have found
Speaker 1: ways to try to give some degree of reciprocity. Um.
Speaker 1: There are companies who have given some portion of their
Speaker 1: profits or said that they've dedicated some portion of their profits,
Speaker 1: have given some of their equity, have provided other means
Speaker 1: of reciprocity. At the same time, I've also spoken to
Speaker 1: some indigenous people who feel like reciprocity, even as a term,
Speaker 1: is perhaps not used correctly, in the sense that it's
Speaker 1: only reciprocity if somebody accepts what you're giving to them.
Speaker 1: And so just for a company to to say, well,
Speaker 1: I'M gonna give ten percent back to the indigenous like that,
Speaker 1: not only is perhaps not enough, but it's maybe even
Speaker 1: a form of I know some people have called it
Speaker 1: tied eye washing or greenwashing, but sort of, I guess,
Speaker 1: avoiding a greater responsibility, which is perhaps what like the
Speaker 1: Nagoya Protocol I mentioned requires, which is actually consulting with
Speaker 1: the groups from which you're taking the knowledge or the
Speaker 1: wisdom and before doing something that would give you the
Speaker 1: profits that you would just give back, actually consulting, getting
Speaker 1: informed consent and having a process at the beginning to
Speaker 1: really share those those benefits. So last question, Graham. Do
Speaker 1: you have a favorite psychedelic? And the part to that
Speaker 1: question is can you think of any moments where you're
Speaker 1: a psychedelic experience actually proved specifically helpful in addressing um
Speaker 1: professional issues or questions that you were thinking through? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: so my favorite PSYCHEDELIC is mushrooms. Um just just because
Speaker 1: I love the I guess the fact that they're just
Speaker 1: so tangible and they're very accessible and that you can
Speaker 1: grow them quite easily yourself. You can find them places,
Speaker 1: often when you're not even expecting to. Um. I love
Speaker 1: just mushrooms in general and my my Fians, I and
Speaker 1: I are I think our our favorite thing to do
Speaker 1: together is a mushroom foraging Um, not usually for for
Speaker 1: psychedelic mushrooms, but just generally Um. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I love the fact that they're just, you know, a
Speaker 1: natural thing and they're they're also very well they're a
Speaker 1: little bit variable, but they're much easier to dose than
Speaker 1: than other things, since you can see exactly what it
Speaker 1: is you're you're getting. In terms of professional impacts, I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's a good question. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I actually in terms of like creativity or the sort
Speaker 1: of stories you hear about people like, Um, Carrie Molli's or,
Speaker 1: you know, or somebody who's had a sort of Eureka
Speaker 1: moment that's been perhaps influenced by the use of psychedelics. Um.
Speaker 1: I think maybe it's because the last thing I generally
Speaker 1: want to think about when I'm on psychedelics is anything
Speaker 1: to have to do with patents or work. So maybe
Speaker 1: I should try and see if I can have some
Speaker 1: creativity on them. I mean, I definitely credit them with
Speaker 1: a lot of change in sort of personal um attributes
Speaker 1: sort to my life. I mean, I I had a
Speaker 1: long time where I was Um, somebody who didn't really
Speaker 1: have a healthy relationship with alcohol, and I found that
Speaker 1: I um had an experience with pulcibin mushrooms. Actually that
Speaker 1: reframe the way I was viewing my relationship with alcohol.
Speaker 1: And actually that's sort of last time after that that
Speaker 1: I have had any kind of uh use of alcohol, Um,
Speaker 1: and other things that I've had really personal meaning. But no,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna have to find an opportunity maybe
Speaker 1: to Um think about some of these pattern issues, what
Speaker 1: sort of reciprocity we are or some of the things
Speaker 1: you asked me that I didn't have very good answers for,
Speaker 1: and uh, maybe I'll find them. Okay. Well, Graham, listen.
Speaker 1: Thank you ever so much both for the work you're
Speaker 1: doing and for the taking the time to speak with
Speaker 1: me and our psychoactive audience. Thank you, even though that
Speaker 1: the briggles was entirely mine, Um, and I'm so thankful
Speaker 1: for being asked to join you in the conversation. I
Speaker 1: hope I see you again in horizons or another conference.
Speaker 1: So I hope to sting. If you're enjoying psychoactive, please
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Speaker 1: That's eight, three three psycho zero, or you can email
Speaker 1: us at psychoactive at protozoa dot com or find me
Speaker 1: on twitter at Ethan Natal Man. You can also find
Speaker 1: contact information in our show notes. PSYCHOACTIVE is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart radio and protozoa pictures. It's hosted by
Speaker 1: me Ethan Nadelman. It's produced by Noham Osband and Josh Stain.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth geesus
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Speaker 1: book drunk who argues that the consumption of alcohol has
Speaker 1: been essential to the evolution of human civilization? You know,
Speaker 1: I look at evidence from other parts of the world,
Speaker 1: that wherever you look, it seems like the first cultivated
Speaker 1: plants were chosen for their psychoactive properties, not for nutrition,
Speaker 1: and so that's a sense in which, quite literally, the
Speaker 1: desired to get intoxicated gave rise to civilization. It's would
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