Reminder that dietary herbal supplements like Dharmanol and prescription drugs are two different animals. Let's say I read that garlic is good for low pressure and that garlic has been used medicinally purposes for centuries. I sell a proprietary garlic concentrate of my own making as a dietary supplement and state that any health claims made for garlic have not reviewed by the FDA. 

Merck takes the garlic, extracts the active ingredient, files a patent and lays ownership to specific claims through a patent application.  It then must run clinical trials (which take years) to prove those claims. Otherwise, the patent, which must be examined by USPTO (that also can take years), will never be approved. I continue to happily sell my all-natural garlic dietary supplement even if the Merck patent is one day approved. My garlic herbal is after all just a dietary supplement under the law. It's like selling an all-natural  Valerian root based herbal supplement in the same store that sells prescription drug Valium, which is modeled from Valerian.