Intellectual Property
First-Generation Patents
Patents stemming from a global PCT patent application filed in 2003 were granted in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand.
The granted patents protected our original OPAL Process, compositions created by the application of the original OPAL Process (including OPAL A) and the therapeutic and cosmetic uses of those compositions.
We had strong patent protection against potential competitors, our patent applications having undergone rigorous examination and overcome many objections by patent offices in the United States, Europe and Japan. In Japan, we were successful in an appeal to a 3-person Board, from a final rejection, which is a rare occurrence.
There is a voluminous literature and thousands of patents for natural therapeutic and cosmetic products and their uses, making this field extremely crowded. Despite this, we were able to obtain patents in every jurisdiction in which applications were filed.
All of these patents have expired.
Second-Generation Patents
Three second-generation global patent applications were filed in accordance with the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The three PCT applications are:
- PCT/AU2020/000119 – Enhancement and stabilisation of proteolytic activity of proteases
- PCT/IB2020/062349 – Composition and methods of manufacture
- PCT/AU2021/051289 – Anti-viral proteases and methods of use
Australian patents have been granted for each of these applications.
The Enhancement and stabilisation of proteolytic activity of proteases invention, which we have labelled the XYZ Process, significantly increases and stabilises the enzymatic activity of the cysteine proteases in both the commercial papain and bromelain products and in the OPAL Extracts. As the XYZ process overcomes the rapid loss of proteolytic activity in these products, it will have important applications in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
The Composition and methods of manufacture invention preserves in active form one or more serine proteases. Although the proteases of papaya have been the most studied plant proteases for over 100 years, the presence of an active serine protease has never been previously identified in an extract derived from the papaya plant.
The serine protease is not present in the unripe fruit, from which all commercial papain products are manufactured.
OPAL B (a variant of OPAL K) has seven times the proteolytic activity of OPAL A when prepared from the same batch of ripe Carica papaya fruit.
The Anti-viral proteases and methods of use patent and applications claims the inactivation of viruses and the prevention and treatment of infections caused by a virus by the administration of compositions comprising the OPAL K Extract.