LSD- AN INVENTION OR DISCOVERY?

On May 01, 2008 in Intellectual Property, General

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On April 29, 2008, Albert Hofmann passed away. He was well-known for being the first person to synthesize and experience the effects of the psychedelic drug LSD, on what is now referred to as Bicycle Day. Since his first famous trip, he has experienced several other trips on other psychedelic drugs also. He has also been actively pushing for medical use of some of the drugs, instead of banning them.

Several obituaries have already appeared on news and websites. For example, in “Albert Hofmann, 11 January 1906-29 April 2008 An Obituary by Dieter A. Hagenbach and Lucius Wertmüller” in Gaia media”¹, they state “He is the discoverer of LSD…”. In the obituary in Times Online, Jeremy Booth states “Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered the mind-altering drug LSD seventy years ago, has died at his home at the age of 102″². Whereas in Telegraph, Andrew McKie writes “Albert Hofmann, the Swiss scientist who invented the LSD and became the first person in the world to experience a full-blown acid trip, has died. He was 102″³. And Sam Cage of Reuters reports “Swiss discoverer of LSD dies, aged 102″⁴. The author noticed that the words “Invent” and “Discover” were used rather loosely and interchangeably in most of the reports.

In this article, the author wishes to pursue the question of which of these two words are more accurately applicable towards LSD. As an Intellectual Property professional, the words “Invention” and “Discovery” are very different, as they have completely varied legal connotations. Invention has to necessarily involve a step that includes human intervention, whereas a Discovery is something that involves finding out that already exists somewhere. As an illustrative example, metals like aluminium and tin are naturally occurring, and hence any act of finding out would constitute “Discovery”, whereas the particular components that constitute steel would be an “Invention” because that has to be made through human intervention necessarily. This is indeed a great issue among technologists and patent offices across the world, as often times an application for a patent is rejected on the grounds that ‘It is merely a discovery’. So with this background, the author poses the question: Was LSD an invention or a discovery?

To resolve this issue, the author examined the contents of Albert’s Hofmann’s book “LSD - My Problem Child”⁵. Specifically, in the chapter “How LSD Originated”, he gives some vital clues as to whether LSD was invented or discovered:

“In 1907, the Englishmen G. Barger and F. H. Carr were the first to isolate an active alkaloidal preparation, which they named ergotoxine because it produced more of the toxic than therapeutic properties of ergot. (This preparation was not homogeneous, but rather a mixture of several alkaloids, as I was able to show thirty-five years later.) Nevertheless, the pharmacologist H. H. Dale discovered that ergotoxine, besides the uterotonic effect, also had an antagonistic activity on adrenaline in the autonomic nervous system that could lead to the therapeutic use of ergot alkaloids. Only with the isolation of ergotamine by A. Stoll (as mentioned previously) did an ergot alkaloid find entry and widespread use in therapeutics….

…The early 1930s brought a new era in ergot research, beginning with the determination of the chemical structure of ergot alkaloids, as mentioned, in English and American laboratories. By chemical cleavage, W. A. Jacobs and L. C. Craig of the Rockefeller Institute of New York succeeded in isolating and characterizing the nucleus common to all ergot alkaloids. They named it lysergic acid. Then came a major development, both for chemistry and for medicine: the isolation of the specifically uterotonic, hemostatic principle of ergot, which was published simultaneously and quite independently by four institutions, including the Sandoz laboratories. The substance, an alkaloid of comparatively simple structure, was named ergobasine (syn. ergometrine, ergonovine) by A. Stoll and E. Burckhardt. By the chemical degradation of ergobasine, W. A. Jacobs and L. C. Craig obtained lysergic acid and the amino alcohol propanolamine as cleavage products….

…I further employed my synthetic procedure to produce new lysergic acid compounds for which uterotonic activity was not prominent, but from which, on the basis of their chemical structure, other types of interesting pharmacological properties could be expected. In 1938, I produced the twenty-fifth substance in this series of lysergic acid derivatives: lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD-25 (Lyserg-säure-diäthylamid) for laboratory usage.”

The text quoted herein shows that the nucleus common to all ergot alkaloids, Lysergic acid is a naturally occurring compound. It should be noted that Lysergic acid as such was never found in its isolated state in nature, it was isolated only in a laboratory. But this presents a situation wherein if the compound occurs fleetingly in nature as an intermediate in biochemical pathways, then it is still considered as naturally occurring, and hence not patentable.

The actual compound in question, LSD, was physically synthesized in the laboratory by Albert Hofmann, which makes it an invention. The author is not aware of any subsequent findings of this compound occurring naturally. Thus, this remains a compound which is obtained through necessary human intervention, which makes it an Invention!

Indeed, several patents were filed on this and other related compounds. But the author wishes to find out the original patent that describes this compound. It was presumably filed first in Switzerland, as Sandoz Laboratories, where Albert Hofmann worked was located there, and in the German language. The actual patent number and contents of patent is still something the author seeks to store electronically for posterity. Anyone with information may post a comment, or alternately write to info@xellectip.com.

1.http://www.gaiamedia.org/content/english/allgemein/main_e_06_medien.html?/content/english/templates_06_medien/article_e_hofmann.html
2.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3845509.ece
3.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1912499/Albert-Hofmann%2C-LSD-inventor%2C-dies.html
4.http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL3012176020080430?feedType=nl&feedName=usmorningdigest
5.http://www.psychedelic-library.org/child.htm

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