Tikun Olam is a private Israli-American cannabis producer with several patent applications on specific cultivars they grow and sell. The patent applications all list Ytzchak Cohen as the inventor. I’m going to focus on the application covering the plant called ‘Erez’. Starting with the abstract:

“The disclosure relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Cannabis sativa plant named ‘Erez’, characterized by a high amount of Cannabidiol (CBD) (>16%) and a higher amount of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, ˜23%).”

Notice the 16% CBD + 23% THC = 39% total cannabinoid content. When I first read this I thought it must be a typo, the highest total cannabinoid content we’ve verifiably observed in dried cannabis is around 30% total cannabinoid content. There is one section worded differently:

“Provided herein is a new and distinct Cannabis sativa L ssp. indica plant named ‘Erez’, as illustrated and described herein, having a particularly high level of CBD of more than 16% and particularly low level of THC of less than 1%.”

According to Tikun Olam’s website, Erez is a high-THC cultivar, which means the above statement is the error and the other classifying metrics are accurate. Let’s take a look at those metrics:

As you can see, they’re claiming the plant is pushing close to 40% total cannabinoid content. If this is accurate, why is the Eraz plant on Tikun Olam’s website listed as 15-18% THC and <1% CBD? The naming convention of all their plants coincides with each different patent application, so it’s not a naming error. Neither THC or CBD content from the website matches the cannabinoid content listed in the patent. It’s unclear as to why the listed metrics are so off from what’s being advertised as the same product being sold to consumers. If the patent was granted and someone was actually growing the exact same plant the patent wouldn’t offer any protection because the plant described in the patent is different from the real plant. 

The other two plants covered in their respective patent applications have cannabinoid contents identical to those listed on the website, Eraz is the outlier. All these plant patents have the same format that describe the plant in detail, limiting the range of protections. The format involves listing the physical dimensions and growth patterns of the plant in addition to the cannabinoid content. The protection is practically limited to these specific plants and doesn’t limit anyone from competing in the cannabis industry, except if they wanted to use identical plants. 

In summary, these patent applications may offer limited protection to using some of these plants if granted. It’s unlikely the Eraz patent application will ever offer any protections, even if granted, due to the seemingly inaccurate classification metrics used in its defining features.