ABSTRACT
A small Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturing firm employing 350 people has an explicit and long standing strategy of keeping its patenting down to a minimum. It feels that it lacks the financial clout to police its patents effectively, and to prevent competitors from inventing around them. It prefers, therefore, to keep its research knowledge more discretely stored in the heads of a few key researchers. When the chips are down, it is easier to hold on to these people through negotiations and the fostering of personal loyalty to the firm than to try to prevent the leakage of valuable technical knowledge that shines like a beacon from the pages of a patent application.
