Today in 1999, US Patent WO 1999007820 A2 was issued, an invention of Charles Bamforth, Dickie Kamini, and Robert Muller, for their “Lipid Removal.” Here’s the Abstract:

A method for removing lipids material from beer or other beverages. The beer is contacted with immobilized lipid binding protein which binds any lipid present in the beer or other beverage. After the lipid removal stage is complete there are no lipid binding additives remaining in the beverage.

This patent is particularly notable because one of the inventors is UC Davis brewing professor Charles Bamforth. And while he holds a few British patents, this is the only American one that turns up on Google’s patent search.