Dental Implant battlefield

The IP battlefield is large and diversified. It goes way beyond highly-publicized battles about patenting genes or semi-conductor designs. A case in point is a lawsuit filed July 14 by Materialise nv, a spin-off of Belgium's Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, against a Swiss-Swedish company, Nobel Biocare.

The object of the suit is alleged patent infringement on the design of dental implants. These constitute the fastest growing segment of the overall dental market. In 2005, the total value of dental implants market segment was estimated at €1.4 billion, growing at an annual rate of 18 to 20 per cent. Nobel Biocare is global leader in this segment, with a market share of 35 per cent. In 2005, its annual revenues amounted to €484.5 million, with an operating profit margin of 33 per cent. The company is listed on both Swiss and Swedish exchanges.

Materialise is not a major player in the dental implants market. Its core business is rapid prototyping, including in medical areas. The company is private and does not publish any financial information. However, it appears considerably smaller than Nobel Biocare (300 employees for the former, 1,500 for the latter).

The lawsuit asserts that the NobelGuide technology launched by Nobel Biocare in 2005 infringes on SurgiGuide technology, for which first patents were filed by Materialise in 1994.

There is however an interesting twist to the story. As one would expect Materialise has no internal expertise in dental implants. Not surprisingly, the company sought such expertise within KULeuven. It so happened that one of the world experts in the field, Daniel van Steenberghe, was a professor at Leuven's Faculty of Medicine. Furthermore, he was a pioneer in application of CT technology to implants. So he was an ideal expert to guide Materialise efforts.

There was, however, one problem. Van Steenberghe has a long-standing affiliation with Nobel Biocare. As a matter of fact, the company sponsored the P.I. Branemark chair in osseointegration held by Van Steenberghe at the university. Not surprisingly, he encouraged Materialise to co-operate with Nobel Biocare. Despite several contacts, the two companies failed to conclude a co-operation agreement. Accordingly, Materialise terminated its collaboration with van Steenberghe, who, however, continued to work with Nobel Biocare.

Van Steenberghe isn’t a target of the Materialise lawsuit, and neither he nor Nobel Biocare responded to a request for comment. But it will be very interesting to see how the case unfolds.