U.S. Patent No. 9,895,404 B1 issued on February 20, 2018, for “Cannabidiol Extraction Plant and Processes,” to Paul T. Baskis.
This is a utility patent, specified in 35 U.S.C. §101, because it describes a new process for extracting CBD from the cannabis plant.[1] There is certainly a method, or process or algorithm, being described in independent claim 1:
- A method for extracting cannabinoids from plant material containing one or more cannabinoids comprising:
(1) shredding the plant material into an appropriate size;
(2) soaking the shredded plant material in a polar solvent to dissolve the one or more cannabinoids into the polar solvent to form a polar solvent/cannabinoid mixture;
(3) separating the polar solvent/cannabinoid mixture from residual solid plant material;
(4) treating the polar solvent/cannabinoid mixture to a non-polar solvent to remove the one or more cannabinoids into the non-polar solvent to form a non-polar solvent/cannabinoid mixture;
(5) distilling the non-polar solvent/cannabinoid mixture to separate the non-polar solvent from the one or more cannabinoids; and
(6) subjecting the cannabinoid mixture to a supercritical fluid to isolate and purify the cannabinoid mixture into individual cannabinoids of the one or more cannabinoids.
Some other interesting notes from the ‘404 patent: dependent claim 4 specifies that the plant material is derived only from the C. sativa strain. Also, dependent claims 2, 3, and 5 contain Markush groups.[2] Finally, the search classifications used include the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), which is a joint patent classification endeavor between the USPTO and the European Patent Office (EPO); the specific classification used is A61K, or “Preparations for medical or dental purposes.” The sub-classifications include 36/185, for “Magnoliopsida,” or the botanical name for a class of flowering plant. The cannabis plant is botanically a flowering plant. Also, the 31/05 sub-classification is for “phenols,” a family of organic compounds characterized by a hydroxyl (-OH) group attached with a carbon (C) atom. Finally, the 31/352 sub-classification is for “condensed with carbocyclic rings,” which includes the compounds of cannabinols.
[1] See MPEP 201: “applications for patents as provided for by 35 U.S.C. 101 relating to a ‘new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter’ . . . is referred to as a ‘utility’ patent application.”
[2] See MPEP 2117: a Markush group is where the claimed alternative is formatted with the precise wording “selected from the group consisting of A, B, and C.”