Patents
A patent is a legal document that is granted by the government to an inventor. The grant of a patent gives the inventor or his assignee the right to exclude others from making, using and selling a specified invention for a certain period of time. The acquisition of patents is a critical part of the operations of technology-driven companies, particularly in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. The rights derived from patents protect scientific and engineering innovations and allow companies to recoup the very significant investments made in researching and developing new products.
Alcon's strategy is to develop patent portfolios for our research and development projects in order to obtain market exclusivity for our products in major markets. While patents are important to our business, we believe that no single patent, or group of related patents, is of significant material importance to Alcon.
We honor Alcon's researchers for helping us to develop new surgical and pharmaceutical solutions to dozens of diseases and conditions of the eye. As a result of their efforts, Alcon owns nearly 6,000 patents worldwide and more than 3,500 patent applications globally, as of July 2010. Over the past three years, Alcon has been granted an average of more than 700 patents per year on a global basis. The existing portfolio of over 9,500 patents and patent applications has resulted from the innovative efforts of hundreds of different inventors, the majority of which are current Alcon associates.
