INNOVATION, PATENTS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH - Innovation in the Biopharmaceutical Industry - page 78

Dow
During the 1990s, Dow began to closely examine its IP portfolio and rights, judged
to be crucial to business success. Dow has established intellectual capital manage-
ment (ICM) as a key business process to inform existing and new business strategies
at the company. Each of Dow's main businesses has its own multifunctional ICM
team, led by intellectual capital managers, who are supported by intellectual capi-
tal technologists. Intellectual capital managers are responsible for cross-functional
teams, comprised of scientists, business people and patent specialists.
With new inventions, the decision to patent lies with the business that created it.
However, the intellectual capital manager of that business will explore with other
business units to see if the invention has any application in their areas, and, in such
cases, these business units can have an input into the way the patent is structured.
If a business unit decides to abandon or license out a patent, other businesses can
comment before a final decision. This joined up approach to “invention planning”
helps ensure resources are not wasted on patenting inventions that may be technically
interesting but do not have a commercial application. Intellectual capital managers
also collaborate with key decision makers in each business unit to identify the nature
of intellectual capital needed to support a particular strategy, establish whether this
is present in house, and, in decisions that involve outsourcing, decide where it can
best be obtained.
Novo Nordisk
During the 1990s, while attempting to enter the US market for growth hormone
and insulin, Novo Nordisk faced a long-running dispute with Genentech that made
it realise the intensity of competition in the markets in which it operates and the
importance of IP in deterring competitors.
The dispute with Genentech was settled in 1998 when the two companies agreed
to a global cross-licensing deal. Critical to ending the dispute was that while Genen-
tech made claims against Novo Nordisk, the latter was able to make claims against
Genentech.
Legal disputes are very expensive and disruptive to a company — as they draw
upon key human resources. At the very beginning of a research project, Novo
Nordisk market intelligence group undertakes extensive patent-related checks to
define the “patent landscape” and to avoid “freedom to operate” disputes. Before a
project can start, a series of procedures are completed, a patent attorney is assigned
to the project, and a task force is established to manage all patent-related issues
throughout the project life — including invention-related disclosures and ongoing
patent surveillance on a weekly basis. When the research reaches a point where
compounds are selected for development, a detailed freedom-to-operate analysis is