This is the first variety of hemp to obtain a US patent

As a high CBD variety that has seduced skeptics and helped change the national discourse on marijuana for medical purposes, Charlotte's Web may well be one of the most famous cannabis strains in the world.

The creators of the variety now have another claim to fame: they hold the first US patent for a hemp cultivar.

The patent documents describe CW2A as a robust, cold-resistant plant capable of producing up to 6.24% CBD and only 0.27% THC.

The company behind the famous variety, Charlotte's Web (CWB) Holdings, operated by the famous Stanley brothers of Colorado, got what appears to be the first US patent for a hemp plant, as shown by the documents filed by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

On July 2, 2019, Denver-based CWB Holdings, Inc., whose CEO was the lead investor, received a plant patent for "a new, separate hemp cultivar called" CW2A ". to deposits. The patent documents describe CW2A as a robust, cold-resistant plant capable of producing up to 6.24% CBD and only 0.27% THC.

It is below the 0.3% THC threshold that distinguishes "hemp" from the rest of cannabis under current federal legislation.

This designation means that CW2A is legally allowed to grow under the 2018 Farm Bill promulgated by President Trump last December. The strain appears to be an ideal source for CBD products derived from hemp that have appeared in recent years on merchant tablets across the country.

Representatives of CWB Holdings – the parent company of Charlotte's CBD web product line currently available in all 50 US states – have not responded to several emails and phone messages from Leafly News asking for comments during the week elapsed.

Intellectual property attorneys, plant experts and cannabis industry marketers interviewed under this article agreed that the patent was a historic initiative that could indicate the intent of CWB Holdings, which went public last year, seized a significant portion of the country's burgeoning CBD. walk.

Despite CBD's considerable footprint among entrepreneurs, investors and buyers, the CBD world lacks a consistent brand and consumer confidence, both known and available across the country. For the first to claim this coat, the booty could be huge.

CBD products are available in upscale boutiques, unscrupulous bodegas, on Amazon and elsewhere. Americans may have spent up to $ 2 billion on CBD-based products in 2018, according to a February analysis by investment bank Cowen Inc. Estimates vary enormously, but the bank assumes that the US CBD market could reach $ 16 billion in 2025.

The patent issued to CWB Holdings is a plant patent, not a broader utility patent, and therefore only valid for legal protection against a competitor cultivating the same cultivar from clone. Despite its narrow nature, it is innovative in that it is the first and only plant patent to obtain a hemp cultivar issued in the United States.

Now that Stanley has both a recognizable name and a registered trademark and a patented product supporting their brand, they seem more willing than most to get to the top of the CBD world.

"It's huge – it's something tangible," said Avis Bulbulyan, CEO of the Los Angeles-based cannabis development company SIVA Enterprises and a member of the cannabis control committee of the Cannabis Control Bureau. in California, which advises regulators to monitor the country's largest marijuana market.

Although the market is still only a few years old, "the hemp space is ridiculously saturated," Bulbulyan said. "Many brands have catchy logos and names, but the product on the inside is generic. There is nothing proprietary about it. However, there is a patent.

The fame of GWB

Charlotte in Charlotte's Web is Charlotte Figi. Aged 12, Figi is suffering from Dravet syndrome, a serious form of infantile epilepsy that, as her family discovered by trial and error, can be treated with CBD, one of the dozens cannabinoids created by cannabis.

Botanically, hemp and marijuana are classified as the same species, Cannabis sativa. The distinction is simply legal: hemp is cannabis with 0.3% THC or less. Anything that contains more THC is "marijuana" and is therefore prohibited under the Federal Controlled Substances Act.

Charlotte and CBD both garnered national attention in 2013, thanks largely to Sanjay Gupta, CNN's medical doctor and medical correspondent, who featured them in his special episode "Weed".

The Stanley brothers as well as seven Christian-colored Coloradans sported a beautiful pop-star appearance and projected the values ​​of CW Network – with a slight outlaw twist due to their role in the exploitation of a cannabis business.

It was the Stanley brothers who developed the high-CBD cannabis strain from which Charlotte's seized oil was processed – and since then has benefited from the notoriety that results in developing it. that the New York Times was calling in March "one of the leading CBD companies. "

CWB Holdings is already claiming to be CBD's first hemp-based brand in terms of market share, with products sold in 8,000 outlets and 675,000 pounds of hemp grown last year, according to the company's figures. 39; company.

The origins of the Stanley brothers' Charlotte Web are, to say the least, dark – and rather controversial. The story version of Stanley is that they crossed cannabis with hemp plants to find something low in THC and high CBD. But if you ask the old West Coast CBD leaders, you will hear that they have captured an existing strain of CBD and named it theirs. Whatever the source, Charlotte is nothing special in itself. Many other strains have a lot of CBD and low THC content.

According to industry watchers, the secret of Stanley's and Charlotte's Web success lies in their keen branding and marketing.

"The only thing that separates them from any other hemp-producing company is the name of their variety," said one observer, who asked not to be identified so that he could speak freely and without reprisals.

The most typical raw materials for CBD products in America are the plants originally grown for hemp seeds, hemp seed oil or hemp fiber. These generate about 3% CBD in dry weight, said Martin Lee, co-founder and director of the California-based CBD project, one of the country's very first CBD advocacy groups.

"You have to use a lot of plants to get your oils," Lee said of most CBD products derived from hemp. To buy as much raw material, some CBD producers can buy varieties of hemp for fiber rather than oil. It's not a problem if your end product is a hemp concrete rope or building blocks, but cannabis is great for sucking toxins out of the soil. "That's where you have problems," Lee added, "and that's why so much of this material is not very good."

Thus, a high quality hemp plant producing twice as much CBD in dry weight – to be extracted into oil suitable for human consumption and resistant enough to be planted in a variety of environments – could change the game.

It seems obvious that the Stanley brothers have long had ambitious goals.

In 2017, the company was receiving a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration, which informed Stanley Brothers Social Enterprises LLC, one of the family companies, that some of the allegations regarding the marketing of hemp products CW's under the Charlotte's Web brand were illegal.

The meaning of the letter is not clear. The FDA did not respond to a request for comment from Leafly News on Wednesday.

The CWB went public in Canada last year, attracting investment from the large Barclays and other banks. In the months leading up to the IPO, Stanley hired a former marketing manager at Coca-Cola to join their management team.

"At the time of adoption of the 2018 Farm Bill, I knew that the time had come to join Charlotte's Web," said Eugenio Mendez, the current director of Web Growth, on the Web. , in the New York Times for a profile of the Stanley brothers published earlier this year.

The Stanley can be the beneficiaries of a good timing. In May 2018, several months before the signature of the agricultural bill, the company filed its CW2A patent.

During the summer, in the months leading up to the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes in the UK (though under impracticable restrictions), Leafly News met with Josh Stanley at the British Parliament in London, during An event organized by United Patients Alliance, the UK's most established Patient Advocacy Group. group.

At the time, the Stanley were looking for a license for their products for the European market, said Josh Stanley.

Other patent filings could soon be discovered. Utility patents, which cover seeds as well as complex chemical compositions, are only accessible to the public 18 months after their filing date. If the company filed documents for both types of patents at the same time, that information would not yet be public.

"It is quite possible that they have also applied for a utility patent," said Dale Hunt, a San Diego-based lawyer and botanist with a PhD in biology.

"Because people think that hemp cultivation is a seed-based farming strategy, [plant patents aren’t] the best fit, "said Hunt. "But maybe if you want your genetics to be exactly the same, then it's worth going through the cloning process."

If the description of the CW2A by the Stanley brothers is accurate, the plant "could potentially make culture a lot easier," Hunt added. "In hemp farming, one of the challenges is to make sure your hemp does not get hot. [that is, above the 0.3% THC threshold]. If that's the case, you have a very big problem on your arm. "

"I'm just guessing," he continued, "but that [stability] could be what makes this plant valuable. "

The power of a patent

Patent filings represent a controversial but misunderstood aspect of the cannabis industry.

Other companies have applied for and obtained patents on cannabis, but, except in exceptional circumstances, a company can not use a patent to prevent a competitor from entering or occupying a segment of the market.

What a patented product can do, is conquer a market – provided that the buying public recognizes the patented item as the top product and buys accordingly.

In an interview, patent attorney Andrew Merickel, Ph.D. in neuroscience, compared this situation to a fruit company that developed a particularly powerful mandarin: an environmentally friendly tangerine and resistant to pests, but easily detached and looks great. and taste delicious.

Nothing prevents other fruit companies from developing their own very good tangerine. But in the meantime, the patented mandarin of the home company might be enough to grab enough market to scare or scare competitors.

"That's the value" of a patent, said Merickel. "This does not prevent other people from developing their own strain that could have similar characteristics; be able to protect this strain that you have developed with the desired characteristics that have an advantage in the market. "

"They can not get a patent that would make the technology of your existing plant violated, but they could also get a patented technology that would allow them to not compete with them if you do not adopt their technology." , added Hunt.

Such a patent "is huge for branding and marketing," Bulbuyan of SIVA said. "The implications are greater than the patent itself."

"Companies will now consider this as a case study and ask themselves," How can we replicate it? How can we take that to the next level? "As far as Stanley is concerned," I guarantee them that they have something else in addition. "