Cannabix Technologies (BLO.C) filed a provisional patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office called “Apparatus and Methods for Detection of Molecules” for their breathalyzer tech today, according to a press release.
The patent covers the company’s intellectual property surrounding their FAIMS (field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry) based cannabis breathalyzer. The application is to protect their methods in asymmetric waveform generation and application and ion optics design. More intellectual property, including techniques leading to use in other areas related to detection of molecules in people’s breath will likely follow.
“Cannabix has developed a unique system with several non-obvious features that have been discovered through our commitment to research and development and innovation. The breath is composed of both volatile and non-volatile components –volatile components like alcohol are relatively easy to detect. The detection of non-volatile compounds like THC under atmospheric pressure (without vacuum) in a humid environment is not an easy endeavour and we believe our work will lead to new types of devices that the analytical and diagnostic fields have been seeking for breath analysis, and possibly other applications. Furthermore, this provisional patent should open the door to several additional patent opportunities,” stated Dr. Raj Attariwala, chief scientific officer.
Cannabix FAIMS system is used to isolate and detect THC in the breath. The device’s design and build allows for sample intake, ionization, ion focusing and direction, filtering and detection—all done under atmospheric pressure. The design provides flexibility for detection of other molecules in the breath, and gives the ability to connect to a mass spectrometer to validate the machine’s detection capabilities.
Earlier this year, the company reported their field testing results, indicating that its FAIMS device could both isolate and detect THC in human breath up to 90 minutes after subjects consumed both cannabis and nicotine. There have been some improvements since then and engineers are well into designing the new version.
—Joseph Morton
