Patents - Fundamentals of Industrial Chemistry: Pharmaceuticals, Polymers, and Business - page 41

applicant is called the patent prosecution. The time from the initial filing of
the application to the issuance of an allowed patent can be several years.
Patent protection is a critical element for the success of many corporations
from large multi-national companies to small operations. With patent
protection, companies can get a return from the investment they have made
in research and can maintain a competitive advantage. The large number of
patents applied for and issued each year is a testimony to the value of patent
protection. In 2011, the USPTO issued 224,505 utility patents. That same
year, just over 500,000 patent applications were submitted. International
Business Machines Corp. led all companies with 6,148 granted patents.
About half of the issued patents were to companies overseas [5]. Of course,
there are many more patent applications than issued patents because only
about one-third of applications result in an issued patent.
Patent litigation is also important. Companies go to great lengths to protect
their intellectual property and infringement penalties are high. In 2008, there
were 2,909 patent suits filed [6].
In 1991, Eastman Kodak Co. was ordered to pay Polaroid Corp.
$873,158,971 for infringing instant photography patents of Polaroid. The
award was calculated based upon royalties, lost profits, and interest [7]. At
the time, this was a record judgment. In 2010, Boston Scientific Corp. agreed
to pay $1.725 billion to a unit of Johnson and Johnson Services, Inc. to settle
long-running disputes between the companies over patents for coronary
stents [8]. In August 2012, Dupont was found to infringe a Monsanto patent
for seeds for herbicide-tolerant soybeans and ordered to pay $1 billion. That
same month, in a separate case, Samsung was ordered to pay Apple $1.05
billion for infringing smart-phone patents. It is likely that these last two
judgments will be appealed.
Nor is patent protection only applicable to large companies. In 1998, John
Osher and three colleagues developed a spinning toothbrush, later named the
SpinBrush ® . They applied for and were granted a patent on the invention [9].
In 2001, they sold the technology to Procter and Gamble Co. for $165 million
up-front and an agreement for future payments pegged to earnings. In 2002,
they settled for a final additional payment of $310 million [10]. The Crest
SpinBrush ® became the nation's best-selling toothbrush, manual or electric.
Patents are useful because they give the assignee a competitive edge by pre-
venting others from practicing the invention. Of course, the assignee can grant
rights to others. By licensing the invention, the assignee has another source
of revenue and many companies have made significant money by licensing
technology.
If an invention is patentable, most elect to apply for a patent. Some will
decide to forego patenting and keep the invention as a trade secret. This
strategy is dangerous because the invention can later be considered to be