QUESTION
What Does A Patent Really Protect For Dietary Supplements?
Asked on Jan 04th, 2015 on Patents - Hawaii
More details to this question:
If a dietary supplement gets patented they are patenting certain ingredients. For example: Compositions and methods for increasing human growth hormone levels 1. A method of increasing human growth hormone in a healthy human being, comprising: orally administering an effective amount of a nutritional supplement composition in unit dosage form to the healthy human being, wherein the unit dosage consists of: about 1 mmol L-arginine; about 1 mmol Oxo-proline; about 2 mmol L-lysine; about 1.5 ¿mol N-acetyl L-cysteine; about 2 ¿mol L-glutamine; and about 125 ¿g Schizonepta (aerial parts) powder. My question is, what exactly is patented in this patent? Can I change the amount of one of the ingredients, or can I simply add one more ingredient to make it different? Or are using those specific ingredients together at all protected? Thanks for you help.
1 ANSWER
First of all, this is a method patent not a product patent so that it covers the administration of the recited dosage of the combination of components in specific amounts. However, that does not mean that a sale of the product could not result in infringement as a contributory infringer or as an inducer of infringement if the composition is only suitable for use in the claimed method. However, while eliminating one fo the components would avoid infringement, adding of a component likely would not, and changing of the amounts may or may not, since the file history of the examination process would have to be analyzed to determine what effect such changes would have. Thus, if you are planning to sell such a supplement, before going ahead, you should have a patent attorney review the file history and advise you as to what would be needed to avoid the coverage of this patent.
Answered on Jan 05th, 2015 at 12:40 PM