Novozymes Wins Patent Infringement Trial Against Danisco on Ethanol Enzyme
25 August 2006
Novozymes has won a 1.5-year-long case against Danisco concerning infringement of a Novozymes patent on enzymes for bioethanol.
Danisco announced today that the company has withdrawn the infringing product—Spezyme Ethyl—from the market. Spezyme Ethyl is a high-performance thermostable alpha-amylase enzyme for the liquefaction of starch at high temperatures.
In Fall 2004, Novozymes determined that Genencor (later bought by Danisco) was selling enzymes protected by Novozymes’ patent rights to the booming American ethanol market. On 15 March 2005—the same day Novozymes’ patent was issued—Novozymes filed suit for patent infringement in the US District Court for the district of Delaware.
The size of the damages will be decided in the fall. Novozymes has claimed several million US dollars in damages for loss of profits.
We are ready to deliver products (e.g. Liquozyme and Termamyl) to the customers replacing the infringing product that Danisco has withdrawn from the market. We are looking forward to a larger turnover and we have new products in the pipeline for the biofuel market.
—Poul Ruben Andersen, Novozymes marketing director for fuel ethanol
You just have to wonder what life would be like without the restrictive forces of corporate patents and "intellectual property" (an oxymoron) considering technology advancement occurs much faster when new technology can spread rapidly because other people will inevitably improve upon the initial design or process and quite likely be of benefit to the originator of the technology. I understand all the contemporary logical arguments for patents and IP in general, but the real world needs more free information sharing, best practices should be able to be adopted even in third world countries where payment for IP rights can be a massive burden in contrast to the income of the people, and therefore the cost of locally produced goods. I think as our society matures and moves away from the greed-power dominant structure the idea of freeing intellectual property will be as we now see freeing human slaves, but unfortunately before we get there our corporate technology patents on intellectual property will have to nearly enslave us, and thanks to General Electric, life is now patentable so we'll see that occur.
Posted by: Erick | 25 August 2006 at 09:11 PM
You dont have to wonder.North Korea is your model.South Korea is the greedy , rapacious capitalist model.People are as greedy as corporations.The promise of turning your intellectual capital into wealth for you and your family is powerful.
The government/university research lab to vc supported incubator business models are resulting in amazing lab to life transformations.{darpanet to internet to googlenet to god knows what next.}
Until nanotech makes the necessities of life immeasurably cheap and universally availlable the capitalist model appeals to the nature of man and delivers at a fairly amazing pace.
Posted by: earl | 27 August 2006 at 07:16 AM
Actually this has nothing to do with alternate political or economic systems, in fact in communism there still exists patents and intellectual property, but instead of individuals and corporations owning rights to them, the state holds them all. That's not changing anything, just shuffling the deck, with different greedy people at the helm.
A better micro-example would be the GNU / Free Software / Creative Commons type licencing schemes where copyrights are used to guarantee the freedoms of the user, not restrict them. Technology advances rapidly when everyone is free to improve upon it, and creative works are more vibrant when you can incorporate other people's art in your own, while leaving yours open to be used in someone else's. It's going to be a very slow transition, but a move from 'all right reserved' to 'some rights reserved' will have to happen at some point if our society is to evolve.
Posted by: Erick | 28 August 2006 at 09:55 AM
Erick,
Are you willing to clean out your bank accounts to 'research' something for years at great expense that will never give a financial return to you and your dependents.
Sit down at your table with a calculator and figure out how capitalism drives innovation like nothing else on this earth. The evidence is all around you, the nations with the greatest numbers of patents have the most dynamic economies and the greatest wealth.
Curt
Posted by: Curt | 29 August 2006 at 07:15 AM