DuPont at a glance

DuPont was founded in 1802, primarily as a manufacturer of explosives. It later developed a focus on chemicals, materials and energy. Its brands include Pioneer brand seeds, Teflon fluoropolymers and fabric protectors, Corian solid surfaces, and Kevlar high strength material. The DuPont Knowledge Center in India will be the seventh major DuPont R&D facility outside the US. Other major sites are located in Shanghai, China; Utsunomiya, Japan; Hsinchu, Taiwan; Wuppertal, Germany; Meyrin, Switzerland and Kingston, Canada. 2006 revenues: $27.4 billion Employees: 60,000 worldwide Operates in more than 70 countries worldwide DuPont chief intellectual property counsel: Mike Walker Director of the DuPont Knowledge Center in India: Homi Bhedwar

"India rising" has become something of a mantra for the country's leaders as they seek to highlight India's rapid rate of economic growth. But the real test of confidence in an economy is when foreign investment dollars begin to flood in.

Which is why a decision by DuPont – one of the biggest three chemical companies in the world – to build its first research and development centre in India is significant.

DuPont says it plans to invest more than Rs100 crores ($22.5 million) to build what will be known as the DuPont Knowledge Center in Hyderabad. The site will initially focus on molecular biology, bio-informatics and polymer synthesis.

"We plan to start with 300 employees and then grow to around 700 or 750 in three to five years," says Homi Bhedwar, the director of the new centre.

India's economic take-off has driven DuPont's decision: "One of DuPont's slogans is 'going where the growth is' and obviously India offers tremendous growth potential in terms of both customers and technology," says Mike Walker, DuPont's chief IP counsel. "That's the most important driver."

Another driver is that the new R&D centre gives the US company much better access to some of India's brightest young scientists.

"When you learn about the capabilities it is quite amazing," he says. "I was told that it can be harder to get into the Indian Institute of Technology than it is to get into premier universities in the US like MIT and Harvard. There's a lot of talent there."

"It helps to have a strong patent law that is TRIPs-compliant but that's not the primary driver for locating our R&D centres," he adds.

But while economic factors may have driven the company's decision to invest in a local R&D centre, Walker describes India's new patent law – which was revised in 2005 to introduce a product patent regime – as a "very welcome development". This is particularly so because the new centre will focus on discovery research as well as applications development. Although the centre is expected to produce patentable inventions, the company says it is too early to set patent targets at this stage.

"For DuPont, IP is one of the most critical resources we have," says Bhedwar.

Challenges ahead

The new centre is expected to be operational by 2008. "By then we should get a good idea of what the IP challenges are," says Bhedwar. But two issues are likely to top the list of IP concerns. First is the issue of enforcement.