Have a Great Cannabis Idea? Here's How and Why to Apply for a Patent - WeedMaps

Travis Bliss, Counsel in the firm's Intellectual Property section and Chair of Buchanan’s IP Biotechnology & Life Sciences Practice Group, talks about how patents apply to cannabis and why they're important in WeedMaps' article "Have a Great Cannabis Idea? Here's How and Why to Apply for a Patent."

“A patent is a right that's granted by the government. It gives you the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling your invention,” says Dr. Travis Bliss, chair of the IP Biotechnology & Life Sciences Practice Group at Buchanan, Ingersoll, & Rooney PC and an expert in the area of intellectual property protections for cannabis-based inventions.

“That incentive then creates this more forward-thinking industry where people are trying to innovate, and that drive towards innovation is going to result in there being new varieties, there being new treatment methods that come out, especially in the medical cannabis space,” Bliss said.

“In regard to cannabis, there's a lot of different areas that you can get patents on. You could get patents on new varieties of cannabis, new cultivars of cannabis,” Bliss said. “You can get patents on methods of growing cannabis. You can get patents on methods of extracting different compounds from cannabis. You can get patents on methods of using cannabis for various things. You can get patents on the other ancillary products like delivery methods and things like that.”

“The federal patent law doesn't say it has to be legal. So, the Patent Office has held that they will grant patents on cannabis inventions, and they have been doing that,” Bliss said.