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The region’s top life sciences patent holders reported 119 fewer patents today than they did six years ago, but numbers alone don’t tell the whole story, say industry experts, because it only takes one blockbuster technology to bring commercial success.
Mass High Tech’s latest list of New England’s largest patent holders in life sciences shows shifts among some midsize and smaller companies since last year, but the four largest holders — Pfizer Global R&D Research Technology Center, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Abbott Bioresearch Center and Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. — remain in places one through four, with Pfizer holding 43 percent more patents than Boehringer.
But regardless of where a company lands on the list, it is not necessarily an indication of whether it is doing well or not, according to one Boston-based patent attorney. “You can’t necessarily draw a straight conclusion from a particular company going up or down,” said Jeffrey Hsi, a partner at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, and chair of the firm’s intellectual property department.
“The bottom line is that the size of a patent portfolio is just one of several factors to consider when evaluating a company’s intellectual property assets,” said Steven K. Gold, senior partner for entrepreneurship at Needham-based Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and founder of several early-stage life sciences companies. “The uniqueness, scope, defensibility and remaining life of each patent, and especially the size of the opportunity being addressed, matter most.”
Patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office drive innovation by giving a business exclusive rights to the intellectual property for 20 years.
Alan Crane, general partner at the Waltham-based venture capital firm of Polaris Venture Partners, noted that some of the midsize and smaller companies on the list have been productive in comparison to the large pharmaceutical companies. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., he noted, has produced 21 patents to Pfizer’s 32 so far this year. The comparison is notable because Vertex’s net income was only $175.5 million in 2008, compared with Pfizer’s $48.3 billion, yet it produced more than half the number of patents. Pfizer has 109 fewer patents today than it had between 2003 and 2008, according to the MHT list, which accounts for most of the decline over that period.
Business strategy, licensing agreements and several years of lag time between filing the patent’s issuance, all play a part in the number of holdings belonging to a company, say experts.
Joyce Pellino Crane is a freelance writer in Westford.
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