Panela manufacturing method from hundreds of years ago, patent registered?

 

Sugarcane concentrate containing policosanol,

Jorge Gonzalez Ulloa, a Colombian sugar-making businessman, filed for the trademark ‘Polycane’ in the United States in June 2020. This trademark was intended to sell sugarcane juice concentrate. Gonzalez said the "policosanol" of sugar cane can lower cholesterol at a lower cost than pharmaceuticals. The method for efficiently extracting this component has also been patented and was scheduled to proceed.

▲ intomark.com
the trademark search tool of WIPS Co.,Ltd

The policosanol extraction method described in the patent is hundreds of years old?

The patent registered by Gonzalez is a sugar cane treatment system and method that maximizes the preservation of policosanol during the producing of safe drinkable cholesterol reduction products. Its patent describes a process for stably extracting the undiluted solution from sugar cane itself. It is said that policosanol can be produced naturally rather than artificially in this way. However, a big controversy on the patent occurred in Colombia. This is because the method described in the patent was no different from the Panela manufacturing method.

▲ wipsglobal.com
US patent 10632167

Panela, a traditional food of Latin America,

'Panela' is unrefined sugar made by boiling sugarcane juice. Panela, mainly produced in Latin American countries, is a traditional food hundreds of years ago. In particular, Colombia, which began to produce panela by Spanish conquerors in the 16th century, is famous country of panela production. So the news of Gonzalez's patent caused a lot of controversy, especially in Colombia. Panela producers of Colombia said that Gonzalez had filed a patent to intercept the Panela market, so they’ll pursue a patent invalidation lawsuit because Panela is everyone's property.

▲ clipartkorea.co.kr

How was the Panela manufacturing method registered?

Experts are absurd about the fact that the patent filed by Gonzalez has been registered. It is the U.S. Patent Office’s fault that patents were registered even though there are many records related to conventionally producing panela. Polk Wagner, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said “This speaks to one of the weakness of patent examination practices”. Examiners are good at finding references to existing technologies when they are published in the United States, “but less so in foreign countries, in particular where the language is different.”

This case has made it widely known that there is a problem with the practice of US patent examination. We’ll have to wait and see how the patent examination will be going.