The Syngenta v. Willowood case is a classic example of an FTO blind spot.

When Syngenta sued Willowood over the manufacturing of the pesticide azoxystrobin, their compound patents had expired. Yet Syngenta still won because they held process patents related to its production.

Cases like these arise because there’s an issue with FTO search philosophy.

Traditional FTOs focus on finding the nouns, like searching for “clay catalyst.” But the real risk often lies in the verbs and functional descriptions: what the catalyst is made of, how it is treated, and how it is implemented in the process.

The most effective FTO approach deconstructs the underlying scientific principles of your process to find functionally identical patents, even when they use different language.

For example, while helping a client manufacturing spandex with a clay-based catalyst, my team uncovered a high-risk patent. This patent did not mention “clay” anywhere. Instead, it claimed synthesis with “acid-treated silica-alumina.”

Our in-house experts immediately flagged this. They knew that:

Clay is a natural source of silica-alumina.

Acid treatment is a standard method for activating such catalysts.

This helped us connect the dots and identify a serious threat that a simple keyword search would have missed. In short, finding the threats buried in the “how,” not just the “what.”

If you have pending patent applications, my team can conduct a quick review to spot opportunities for additional family members that cover these gaps and strengthen your patent families.